Neil diamond quotes

I came back to performing with a different attitude about performing and myself. I wasn't expecting perfection any more, just hoping for an occasional inspiration.

The man in between waits between the two, not hearing the lie and not seeing the true. Unknowing what is and denying what seems, and there he will sleep, the man in between.

I still need practice in enjoying the fruits of success.

I communicate with fans on Twitter. I enjoy the ability to impulsively write something and ship it out to the fans and fellow tweeters out there.

Love on the rocks, ain't no surprise. Pour me a drink and I'll tell you some lies.

I used to go to my kids' soccer games and I was the only parent who wasn't screaming, because I'd have to do a show that night. It was hard. Moms and dads get more emotional at those soccer and Little League games than at a professional game.

Worse than bad reviews is to be ignored.

I've finally found somebody who's up to the task of being my wife, because I'm very ... high maintenance.

The lyrics aren't simple, either. They're extremely difficult because I'm trying to say complicated things in as few words as possible.

You're alive, you might as well be glad.

Acting is a specific discipline. Just because you can sing doesn't mean you have the sensitivities of being an actor.

Touch a man who can't walk up right, and that lame man, he's gonna fly.

I'm trying to find the truth in myself. To play somebody else doesn't interest me. It's not the focus of my life. I can get through most scenes and do the acting part of it, and at best, I'm going to be mediocre.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

I don't pamper my voice. It's part of my body. If my body is rested and healthy, my voice is rested and healthy.

The truth always stays the same.

The main objective in any song, the songs that I write, has always been that it reflect the way I feel, that it touch me when I'm finished with it, that it moves me, that it can take me along with it and involve me in what its saying.

When I need my wife or when I need companionship or someone to talk to, I need it, like, now. So my wife will have to give up whatever she's doing at that moment to tend to my needs. And in the same way, I would tend to hers. That's not such an easy thing to do.

Well, I loved singing in the chorus, and there was some connection for me between gospel and choral music.

Maybe tonight, maybe tonight by the fire all alone you and I. Nothing around but the sound of heart and your sighs.

She got the way to move me, Cherry, she got the way to groove me.

Shame, it comes in every size, touches many lives, knocks on many doors.

I think I need to be married. Having a wife and family makes some sense out of all that I do, because I can't make any sense out of 20,000 adoring fans watching me for two hours.

Melinda was mine 'til the time that I found her holding Jim, loving him.

Brooklyn is not the easiest place to grow up in, although I wouldn't change that experience for anything.

When love is unkind, it is not love anymore.

Home's the most excellent place of all.

I suppose that being moved to write a song is more applicable to me, I have to be moved, I have to have a reason to write a particular song.

I don't feel I have to write deep and meaningful songs; they can be light and meaningless. It has to do with the place I am in my life, a really good place.

You have to go out there and give a piece of yourself -- your life, your soul. And you better give the audience everything you can -- physically, emotionally, musically. Then maybe they'll accept you and give you a standing ovation at the end.

Songs are so all-encompassing; they're the joys and sorrows and pacing of life.

Love never doubts or suffers or cries. Love shows no fear, love tells no lies.

Drop your shrink and stop your drinkin', crunchy granola's neat.

I had always held everything in before.

It's very difficult for me to say 'I love you' but to sing 'I love you' for me is easier.

Chelsea Morning is a great Joni Mitchell song and I guess I'm partial to her lyrics because they show me a slightly different perspective on life.

Song Sung Blue took a lot of compressing and refining, and it has one of my favorite lyrics.

You like to think that it's something you created, but secretly you know that you had some kind of help, or somebody gave this to you.

Pride is the chief cause in the decline in the number of husbands and wives.

My peers accept me and respect me, and that's enough.

September morn Do you remember how we danced that night away Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play September morning still can make me feel this way.

I don't like all of the music to be serious and deadly.

Some are born who never need them, Others still who never read them, signs.

I couldn't resist. I went over and joined in, and we just sang the song together, ... They had no idea that I had written it, or who I was. I was just some weird guy who wanted to join in on the singing.

Love is still a simple act of faith, and a faithful heart is always worth the wait.

Songwritng is what I do.

He aint heavy, he's my brother.

I had always sung in my dad's shop. I worked there after school, and I'd be singing along with the top-40 records of the day.

Each acoustic guitar has its own character and personality. On a particular day, I might pick one up and start noodling around, looking for some emotional content in the chords.

Very often the music comes first.

I like having a woman. I like having someone to come home to, to make all of the hard work feel worth it. I need someone with me. And I want someone.

Whatever success I've had so far has been assimilated into my body and mind.

Hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching you.

The music is key. It has the power to transport you. I go from being a slightly insecure, shy kind of a person offstage, to this super-confident, motivated, entity onstage.

Fencing made me feel for the first time like a winner.

My music is in young people's lives because it's so much a part of their parents' lives.

I am, I said to no one there and no one heard at all, not even a chair.

I've always accepted some kind of deity, especially as a songwriter.

It's much harder to play myself. If I ever do a movie again, it'll be a singing serial killer.

I followed all life's pleasures wherever they would lead, but someone I can treasure is all I really need.

Be...As a page that aches for a word Which speaks on a theme that is timeless

I think that if I have one hope, 1 ambition, 1 aspiration for the next 4 or 5 years it would be that I can improve as a writer and just be able to say more of what I want to say throught the music.

I definitely don't feel like I'm 71. I feel like I did when I was - between 30 and 40. The body ages. The mind doesn't.

I do have a large audience overseas, and I want to continue to be an international artist.

Of all the songs that I've written since I was 15 or 16, every song is different every song is special, it happens in a different way and I like that.

When I first started, I worked with three chords in every bar, but I found that tied me down - I'm not a chord-change writer, I'm a songwriter.

I get good vibes from people. There is a thread of DNA that runs from the days that I was a young teenager to these days. It feels good to go back there.

While the sun God will may your day, sing as a song in search of a voice that is silent, and the one God will make for your way.

I am, I cried. I am, I said. And I am lost.

I'm throwing myself back in because I like being married. I don't want to end this whole fabulous journey alone. I want someone by my side who I love and who loves me. I've finally found somebody who's up to the task of being my wife, because I'm very high maintenance.

As a songwriter there's nothing more exciting than the unknown, the new and different.

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

My writing is different. I think it's better. I think it's deeper. But, strangely enough, it covers a lot of the old ground. Maybe it says it in a more sophisticated way ... but I [have written] about basically the same subjects over the years.

All my songs are based on melody, which is retrieved from my Jewish heritage. Melody will always exist no matter what the rhythmic changes there are.

I thought love was more or less a giving thing. Seems the more I gave, the less I got.

But you make me sing like a guitar humming . . .

Money talks but it can't sing and dance and it don't walk.

I got worries by the ton, getting cancer's only one. Over taxed and alimonied, tired of eating fried baloney.

I've found for the last couple of years that the things that I can become most deeply involved with are songs that reflect my real feelings about things and so that what I've been writing about.

Then come and as we lay, beside this sleepy glade, there I will sing to you my Longfellow serenade.

I think probably Australians have just a little more taste than most people.

Don't need to say please to no man for a happy tune.

I guess I haven't gotten over being lost, a wandering gypsy.

Being lost is worth the being found.

I was always interested in science, and pre-med was arespectable thing to do while I ursued my songwriting.

I'm lucky. Hard work is the key, but luck plays a part.

I Am... I Said is a very complicated song and its complicated probably because my feelings were very complicated when I wrote it.

Shilo, when I was young, I used to call you name.

Money talks, but it don't sing and dance, and it don't walk. And long as I can have you here with me, I'd much rather be, forever in blue jeans.

My voice is unadorned. I don't try for perfection. I try to be honest and truthful and soulful with the voice I have. If I make mistakes in notes, or there are cracks in notes, I don't fix them. That's the way it is.

When I am not writing, I'm dying.

Because my musical training has been limited, I've never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song.

I have a lot of confidence, but little Self-Esteem. This has given me a tremendous creative spark because it forced me to keep proving myself.

I thank the Lord for the night time.

I've spent my whole life trying to find out who I am, so I could express that through the music.

I'm not really comfortable in any one spot.

Free, only want to be free, we huddle close, hang on to a dream.

I may have a little bit of a talent for music, but I've learnt to tap into my own self when I write. When I put the drill bit inside my heart, sometimes I come up with something light and frothy, sometimes with something deep and painful, but it's great to connect with the audience.

If it can affect me, if it has meaning to me, if I feel I can do it well, I will do it and record it and thats why I recorded these songs.

I was always trying to win the world, but somewhere I lost you.

Over the years, you grow up, you mature and you see things in a different way, and it's reflected in the writing.

As I said before, stones to me is meant things that hurt people, things that cause pain and thats what this song is about.

You can't plan to write a great song. It just happens to you. It drops in your lap. It's the same thing with a woman.

Well, I Am... I Said was a very difficult song, very difficult because I really had to spend a lot of time thinking about what I was before the song was written.

Nothing is sadder than love left unheard.

The art of love is who you share it with.

When you're on a merry-go-round, you miss a lot of the scenery.

Songs are life in 80 words or less.

Crackling Rosie make me smile. God, if it lasts for an hour that's alright, to set the world right. Find us a dream that don't ask no questions.

I fell in love with folk music at Surprise Lake Camp. It was the songs of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers.