Billy Joel Quotes

Why don't the Beatles get back together? Why don't nobody sing of romance?

I'm writing for the sake of writing music. Whether it gets heard or not isn't an issue for me. It keeps my own juices going and my mind active.

I've reached the age where competence is a turn-on.

Hey Lord, would ya look out for her tonight, and make sure that all her dreams are sweet? Said now, would ya guide her on the roads, and make them softer for her feet? Hey Lord, would ya look out for her tonight, and make sure that she's gonna be alright, until she's home and here with me.

If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings.

If it seems like I've been lost in 'lets remember', If it seems I'm gettin' older and missin' my younger days, well you shoulda known me much better, cause the past is something that never got in my way.

We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge.

You can pay Uncle Sam with all your overtime, is that all you get for your money?

You've got yoga, I've got beer. You got overpriced, I got weird.

I don't know why people thought I was retiring.

Only the good die young.

Those who have expressed doubts and misgivings about their ability to live this kind of life shouldn't try, because being a musician is not something you chose to be, it is something you are.

Some people stay far away from the door if there's a chance of it opening up. They hear a voice in the hall outside and hope that it just passes by.

I started just concentrating on songwriting when I was abut 20; I'd been in rock bands six or seven years, kinda got that out of my system, I said, "ok, you ain't gonna be a rock star, you don't look like a rock star, it probably ain't gonna happen. So what you should do is write songs and maybe other people will do your songs."

If you said good-bye to me tonight, There would still be music left to write.

In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

Streetlife serenaders Have no obligations Hold no grand illusions Need no stimulation.

I'm kind of putting my toe back in the water and seeing how it feels. We're going to be doing stuff we haven't done for years and years and years. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this stuff flies.

They're sharing a drink called loneliness, but at least its better than drinking alone.

I don't belong in limos or private jets or on stage with people cheering me but that's what's kept me grounded because I know it's not right.

...And you're the only one who knows.

I am the entertainer, I've come to do my show You've heard my latest record, it's been on the radio It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life It was a beautiful song but it ran too long If you're gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit So they cut it down to 3:05.

What will it take for you to believe in me, the way that I believe in you?

Streetlife serenader never sang on stages, needs no orchestration, melody comes easy, need no vast arrangement to do their harmonizing.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

I always thought of myself as the piano player in the band. That, I suppose, I'm confident about, and I guess my songwriting developed as I went along and I got a certain amount of confidence in that. The songs are like my kids, I'm proud of all of them for one reason or another.

Where have you been hanging out lately honey? You can't dress trashy 'til you spend a lot of money.

It's a little intimidating to walk into a studio and know that you're going to sing a duet with Barbra Streisand.

If you're a very unfulfilled person you might have a tendency to turn to crime.

We all end in the ocean. We all start in the streams. We're all carried along, by the river of dreams.

She's the quiet type who's into heavy metal.

Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.

And the waitress is practicing politics

As the businessmen slowly get stoned

Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness

But its better than drinkin' alone

I look in the mirror and think, 'I don't look like a rock star.' I talked about this with Bono and we looked at each other and decided we look like a pair of bricklayers.

There's always a place for the angry young man with his fist in the air and his head in the sand. He's never been able to learn from mistakes, he can't understand why his heart always breaks.

And so my child and I came to this place to meet him eye to eye and face to face. He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced. We never knew what friends we had, until we came to Leningrad.

They say that no one's gonna play this on the radio. They said the melancholy blues were dead and gone. But only songs like these played in minor keys, keep those memories holding on.

Know what you love and do what you love. If you don't do what you love, you're just wasting your time.

So I would choose to be with you, That's if the choice were mine to make, But you can make decisions too, And you can have this heart to break

If you search for truthfulness, you might as well be blind.

Though you can see when you're wrong, you know you can't always see when you're right.

She's got a way about her,
And everywhere she goes,
a million dreams of love surround her,
everywhere.

Here I am starting a franchise and I'm gonna be 65 years old. I should've started this in 1978 ... I wrote like 300 songs and I'm gonna have to re-learn some of them!

I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14 - to meet women.

People in music lie, but they don't expect you to believe them. People in television actually expect you to believe the lies.

I can't remember faces, don't remember names, but after awhile and a thousand miles it all becomes the same.

My friends and I are crazy. That's the only thing that keeps us sane!

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.

So you play your albums and you smoke your pot And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot Oh, but still you're aching for the things you haven't got, What went wrong? And if you can't understand why your world is so dead And why you've got to keep in style and feed your head Well, you're twenty one and still you mother makes your bed And that's too long.

There are people who have lost every trace of human kindness.

And it was dark
So dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together

The biggest regret? This may be one of those years I have no regrets.

The graduations hang on the wall, but they never really helped us at all.

The good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.

So many faces in and out of my life Some will last Some will be just now and then. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again. Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby Say goodbye to Hollywood Say goodbye my baby.

Remember how I found you there alone in your electric chair, I told you dirty jokes until you smiled.

I watched the mighty skyline fall

From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand And his daring life of crime made him a legend in his time East and west of the Rio Grande. Well, he started with a bank in Colorado In the pocket of his vest a Colt he hid. And his age and his size took the teller by surprise, And the word spread of Billy the Kid.

The joy of life is made up of obscure and seemingly mundane victories that give us our own small satisfactions.

The piano sounds like a carnival and the microphone smells like a beer. And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, man, what are you doing here?

Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.

When I was 19, I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.

Don't wait for answers, just take your chances. Don't ask me why.

I compare songwriting to childbirth. How many kids can you have before your uterus explodes?

I'm single but interviewing.

Every time I've held a rose,
It seems I only felt the thorns

There's a deep-seated paranoia that Americans have about not being Americans or something.

I work with musicians whose opinions I respect and if they don't like something they don't hold back. They'll say, 'That really sucks' and 'You've lost it' and 'You're no good anymore.' And I crawl away with my tail between my legs and I fear that kind of ridicule, but I want them to like the music I'm bringing to them.

Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike
Indiana's early morning dew
High up in the hills of California
Home is just another word for you

Critics have said I write without spontaneity, in cold blood. I don't. I write in hot blood.

Hope you don't think this is Billy Joel unplugged. I'm a piano player. I'm already unplugged.

Take risks. Take chances. Don't be afraid. You gotta go into life brave.

Give a moment or two to the angry young man with his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.

I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage. I found that just surviving was a noble fight.

You can get what you want or you can just get old.

I guess some people in classical music can keep going until they kick (die) and the (Rolling) Stones are definitely pushing the envelope but I wonder if here's a time when you have to face whether you are as good as you used to be.

I'm a piano player. I never thought of myself as a singer, at all. I was always trying to sound like somebody else. I don't like my own voice, I like Ray Charles, Robert Plant, I like Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart, people that have an edge in their voice.

Do what's good for you
Or you're not good for anybody

There's a place in the world for the angry young man With his working class ties and his radical plans He refuses to bend he refuses to crawl And he's always at home with his back to the wall And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost And struggles and bleeds as he hangs on his cross And likes to be known as the angry young man.

I'm a statistic in a system that a civil servant dominates.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?

I have to thank my mother for paying for the piano lessons for all those years.

I was thinking of the Four Seasons, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and when I was thinking "Uptown Girl!" I was trying to sing like Frankie Valli. They had a song called "Ragdoll," which was about a poor girl and a rich guy. So I just flipped it around and made it about a rich girl and a poor guy.

My songs are like my kids.

There's an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin.

I've always said about 50% of what happens at a concert has to do with the audience. If you play for a dead audience you're gonna stink. If we play for a great crowd we're much better. You want 'em to make noise. It's kinda like sex, if they don't make noise, you ain't doin' it right.

I once believed in causes, too. Had my pointless point of view. Life went on no matter who was wrong or right.

I've played all kinds of places, laid all kinds of girls.

The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.

Most people are satisfied with the junk food being sold as music.

We're on the verge of all things new.

You can walk away from your mistakes You can turn your back on what you do Just a little smile is all it takes And you can have your cake and eat it too. Loneliness will get to you somehow But ev'rybody loves you now.

I don't want some pretty face to tell me pretty lies, all I want is someone to believe.

You can speak your mind But not on my time.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown For the Pennsylvania we never found For the promises our teachers gave If we worked hard If we behaved So the graduations hang on the wall But they never really helped us at all No they never taught us what was real

If you tell kids they can't have something, that's what they want.

They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known. And I believe there is a time for meditation in cathedrals of our own. Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lovers eyes ... and I can only stand apart and sympathize ... for we are only what our situations hand us ... it's either sadness or euphoria ...

When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.