James Taylor

I don't reinvent myself in any major way. It seems to be a slow evolution. I go back and visit certain themes that I feel strongly about and resonate with me emotionally.

I don't read music. I don't write or read music.

I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself!

A concert is always like a feast day to me.

Sobering up was responsible for breaking up my marriage. That's what it couldn't stand.

If you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. It's boring and painful, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours.

I'm very unstable; there's no stability in a musician's life at all. You live on a bus or on the road hand to mouth and you don't know where your money's coming from.

I was in chemical jail.

I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.

I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.

Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release.

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five.

Things started to get out of control when I began reading that I was a superstar.

It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly.

It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.

Ireland, Italy and Brazil are the most musical places for me. They're extremely musical cultures and anything you pitch they basically catch.

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

I can take criticisms but not compliments.

I have a studio in a barn at home - we rehearse there, we film there and we record there. It's fun to hang out with my guys and see what comes out next.

I had a very moral upbringing, and spiritual in a sort of not very specific way.