Don't try to describe the ocean if you've never seen it.
As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin' man, I have chalked up many a mile. Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, and I learned much from both of their styles.
I was hungry and went out for a bite, ran into a chum with a bottle of rum and we wound up drinking all night.
I recommend that you try a little mental floss.
I'd like to be a jellyfish, 'cause jellyfish don't pay rent.
Today there are two Madonnas, our lady of Fatima over here and that woman from Michigan.
This morning I shot six holes in my freezer. I think I've got cabin fever.
Quitting doesn't enter my mind.
If it doesn't work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.
I've always been trying to write songs like Lightfoot. A song of mine like 'Come Monday' is a direct result of me trying to write a Gordon Lightfoot song.
Wrinkles will only go where the smiles have been.
I hate to mention age, but I come from an era when we weren't consumed by technology and television. My mother insisted that her children read. To describe my scarce leisure time in today's terms, I always default to reading.
Maybe there is another who sees life not as a flickering candle but as a torch that can illuminate an undiscovered world.
Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
Grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate. And after a long time, the waters of your life get calm again, and that is when the memories of those who have left begin to shine as bright and as enduring as the stars above.
What would Pop-eye do in a tight spot like this?
I'm going back to my parrot head friends.
Under the heavens and under the sea there's a friend I don't know, who holds the right key.
If the phone doesn't ring, it's me.
I have always looked at life as a voyage, mostly wonderful, sometimes frightening. In my family and friends I have discovered treasure more valuable than gold.
There's a strange sense of pleasure being beat to hell by a storm when you're on a ship that is not going to sink.
Wasting away again in Margaritaville, searching for my lost shaker of salt.
Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.
There will always be those who feel more comfortable not venturing from the warmth of the hearth, but there are those who prefer to look out the window and wonder what is beyond the horizon.
Without geography you're nowhere.
If we couldn't laugh, we would all going to go insane.
I remember the excruciating school task of writing a three-page term paper. But, oh, that feeling when I was done! I think I drive myself for that feeling of accomplishment.
What if life is just a cosmic joke, like spiders in your underwear.
I ain't no drinking man, but temptation got the best of me.
The only thing that is still free in this world is religion, which is why a lot of people "find it.
I'd rather die while I'm living then live while I'm dead.
One of the inescapable encumbrances of leading an interesting life is that there have to be moments when you almost lose it.
Whether it's a letter, song lyrics, part of a novel, or instructions on how to fix a kitchen sink, it's writing. You keep your craft honed, you acquire the discipline to finish things. You turn into a self-taskmaster.
It's important to have as much fun as possible while we're here. It balances out the times when the minefield of life explodes.
There's a little bit of fruitcake left in everyone of us.
Love is a wave building to a crescendo. Ride if you will, ride it with me.
Older and wiser voices can help you find the right path, if you are only willing to listen.
I'm getting old, don't wear underwear, and I don't go to church.
I slowly surrender to the child in me who can't say goodbye.
Be good, and you will be lonesome, be lonesome and you will be free. Live a lie and you will live to regret it, that's what living is to me.
Songwriters write songs, but they really belong to the listener.
Tonight I just need my guitar.
Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care.
With you, I would walk anywhere
And there's that one particular harbor Sheltered from the wind Where the children play on the shore each day And all are safe within...
Lights are glowing in the palm trees.
There's no 'dumb-ass' vaccine.
I've always found drugs and alcohol somewhat pedestrian. It's like, I don't need an external agent to open my mind. I'm here, conscious, alert, present. Why would I alter that?
Whatever thrills you, anything you love to do, just say - Someday, I will.
The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I'd say probably in the early '70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, 'cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.
There's damsels in distress out there, and we got all this beer.
Where it all ends I can't fathom, my friends. If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.
I've got a Caribbean soul I can barely control, and some Texas hidden here in my heart!
Give me oysters and beer, for dinner every day of the year, and I'll be fine.
I still consider it a summer job, though. So, I try to maintain that summer job as long as I can. But it's exciting to be able to have the opportunity to do things I always dreamed of as a kid.
Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
I have been drunk now for over two weeks.
It's a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.
If I don't die by Thursday, I'll be roaring Friday night.
The ocean has always been a salve to my soul.
If life gives you limes, make margaritas.
It takes no more time to see the good side of life than to see the bad.
Indecision may or may not be my problem.
Only time will tell if it was time well-spent
Go fast enough to get there, but slow enough to see.
The weather is here Wish you were beautiful.
It was too much Tequila, or not quite enough.
Life was just a tire swing. 'Jambalaya' was the only song I could sing. Blackberry pickin', eatin' fried chicken, And I never knew a thing about pain. Life was just a tire swing.
I just want to live happily ever after, every now and then.
Pack your bags, we're going on a guilt trip!
I want to keep going as I have, to travel, read, perform, write, and enjoy my family. I've promised myself only this: no more Laundromats, no more two-shows-a-night, and no more deadlines. I'll work at my own pace.
Moderation is the key so I work certain amout of time and then I take a certain amount of time off.
People who think too much before they act don't act too much.
It's those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes nothing remains quite the same. With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.
Live a lie, and you will live to regret it; that's what livin' is to me.
While my mind is flexible, these brittle bones don't bend.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
Nobody else cares about you at the beginning of your career except you-and, of course, your mother. Your mother is there because that is what mothers do.
Therapy is extremely expensive. Popping bubble wrap is radically cheap.
We got to roll with the punches, play all of our hunches, make the best of whatever comes your way. Forget that blind ambition, learn to trust your intuition - plowing straight ahead, come what may.
Elvis was the only man from Northeast Mississippi who could shake his hips and still be loved by rednecks, cops, and hippies.
I'm inspired by people who keep on rolling, no matter their age.
find yourself a lover who will glue you to the floor
We need more fruitcakes in this world, and less bakers!
I know a girl made of memories and phrases, lives her whole life in chapters and phases.
Shells sink, dreams float. Life's good on our boat.
If I couldn't laugh, I just would go insane. If we couldn't laugh, we just would go insane. If we weren't all crazy, we would go insane.
Forget that blind ambition, and learn to trust your intuition.
We're weird roman candles burning bright at both ends. At the end of the road's where this story begins. Where the green of the gulf meets the blue of the sea. What makes it all happen is still a mystery to me. But those crazy days and those crazy ways, we never want to undo. We'll be together, now and forever.
Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call. Wanted to sail upon your waters, since I was three feet tall. You've seen it all, you've seen it all. Watched the men who rode you, switch from sails to steam. In your belly, you hold the treasure that few have ever seen, most of them dreams, most of them dreams.
Well, I'm still here. Didn't have to go to rehab, and I'm not broke.
I can only say the first thing that pops into my mind is I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working - when I first moved to Nashville - in a bar in a Holiday Inn.
I'm growing older, but not up.
If there’s a heaven for me, I’m sure it has a beach attached.
I have never cared about setting world records, or filling my boat with fish, or, for that matter, even catching fish. I go for the experience of spending six hours in the arms of the ocean, never thinking of a single thing except chasing fish.
Some people think there's a woman to blame, but I know - it's my own damn fault
I hate to mention age, but I come from an era when we weren't consumed by technology and television.
Any attempts at autobiography before the age of eighty seem pretty self-involved to me. There are a lot of smart middle aged people but not many wise ones.
My voyage was never a well-conceived plan, nor will it ever be. I have made it up as I went along.
You know Death will get you in the end, but if you are smart and have a sense of humor, you can thumb your nose at it for awhile
When they tried to draft me, I earned a college degree.
The beautiful people in the magazines, got the normal ones living beyond their means.
I don't get tired of playing "Margaritaville". It's paid my bills for years.
It takes just as little time to see the positive side of life as it does the negative side.
I got a PBS mind in an MTV world.
It's my job to be better than the rest, and that's enough reason to go for me. It's my job to be better than the rest, and that makes the day for me.
When the good times come around, they gallup in like wild horses. You just try to stay on them for as long as you can. And when they throw you offyou just wait in the shade until they come around again.
Is it time for your medication or mine?
later down the road of life, i made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.
My head hurts, my feet stink, and I don't love Jesus. It's that kind of morning.
Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder, So I can't look back for too long. There's just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can't go wrong.
There's something missing in the music industry today... and it's music. Songs you hear don't last, it's just product fed to you by the industry.
Yes, I am a pirate two hundred years too late.
Yeah. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun... We're showing people how, in a pretty crazy and whacked-out, dangerous world, you can still have fun.
Sail the main course in a simple sturdy craft. Keep her well stocked with short stories and long laughs. Go fast enough to get there but slow enough to see. Moderation seems to be the key.
Fun is about as good a habit as there is.
Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years to late. Cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder, I'm an over forty victim of fate.
When reality looks too ugly, fantasize.
Some of it's magic and some of it's tragic but I had a good life all the way.
That to me is the way any good romantic would look at his life: Live it first, then write it down before you go.
Be yourself, be pleasant, play hard and have no regrets.
Some make the world go round; others watch it turn.
Mother Mother Ocean, I have heard your call.
I got my hush puppies on. I guess I never was made meant for glitter rock and roll.
I'm living on things that excite me, be they pastry, or lobster, or love...
