Van Morrison Quotes

Hearing the blues changed my life.

When it's not always raining there'll be days like this. When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this. When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch. Well my mama told me there'll be days like this.

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

When heart is open, you will change just like a flower slowly opening.

Let go into the Mystery, let yourself go. You've got to open up your heart, that's all I know. Trust what I say and do what you're told, and baby, all your dirt will turn into gold.

You gotta fight every day to keep mediocrity at bay ...

My records do not require a lot of thought of 'What is this?' and 'What is that?' That would be too contrived for me.

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds that I may be a vehicle for thee.

If it's what you do and you can do it, then you do it.

I'm very lucky, I'm happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don't have any regrets whatsoever.

Going down the old mine with a transistor radio.

I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright.

You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense.

Laying underneath the stars Can be so much fun Especially when you're feeling good When you're with the one you love.

It's all complete instinct and intuition, and that's extremely difficult to teach.

Do you remember the time darlin' when everything made more sense in the world? Oh I remember, I remember ... when life made more sense ... Take me back, take me back, take me way back ... to when life made more sense.

If my heart could do my thinking, would my brain begin to feel?

A famous person to themselves, they don't get up in the morning and think, I'm famous. I'm not famous to me. Famous is a perception.

Jackie Wilson said it was Reet-Petite, kind of love you got knock me off my feet.

I'm a dweller of the threshold and I'm waiting at the door, and I'm standing in the darkness, I don't want to wait no more.

The wild night is calling.

As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am.

Way across the country where the hillside mountains glide, the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child.

I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

When you hear the music ringin' in your soul
And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows
And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun

Let your soul and spirit fly.

Don't want to discuss it, I think it's time for a change You may get disgusted, some think that I'm strange In that case I'll go underground, get some heavy rest Never have to worry, about what is worst and what is best.

At the end of the day, we should give thanks and pray, to the one, to the one.

Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

In the gentle evening freeze, by the whispering shady trees I will find sanctuary in the Lord.

From the dark end of the street - To the bright side of the road - We'll be lovers once again on the - Bright side of the road

Hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic ...

It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.

The blues - there's no black and white - it's the truth.

The fog of illusion, the fog of confusion is hanging all over the world.

Singing is my profession - there is no plan B.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That's what I do. That's my job. Simple.

She's as sweet as tupelo honey,
She's an angel of the first degree.

- Tupelo Honey

The way I was singing the songs was jazz

When all the dark clouds roll away And the sun begins to shine I see my freedom from across the way And it comes right in on time Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light And it comes from the sky above Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me And lights my life with love.

I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.

I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.

And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they'll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrows sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I shall drive my chariot
Down your streets and cry
Hey, it's me, I'm dynamite
And I don't know why
And you shall take me strongly
In your arms again
And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.

Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
That's shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an not to wonder
That's just fine
And I'll be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Sugar-baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile....

- Sweet Thing

You've got to separate the singer and the songs.

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes ...
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that they play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush ...
One more Moondance with you in the moonlight
On a magic night

If my heart could do my thinking, and my head begin to feel, I would look upon the world anew, and know what's truly real.

Oh won't you stay Stay a while with your own ones Don't ever stray Stray so far from your own ones 'Cause the world is so cold Don't care nothing for your soul That you share with your own ones.

Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

A fantabulous night to make romance.

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.

When the ghost comes round at midnight Well you both can have some fun He can drive you mad, he can make you sad He can keep you from the sun When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound And the hand does fit the glove And no matter what they tell you, There's good and evil in everyone.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

Common one, my illuminated one, oh my high in the art of suffering. Take a walk with me.

Sometimes, when the spirit moves me I can do many wondrous things I wanna know when the spirit moves you Did ye get healed?

I put out records to this day that are not necessarily in a sequence of anything. Some could be written a while back, some not. There is no set pattern.

Did you ever hear about the rock and roll singer who got 3 or 4 Cadillacs, saying power to the people, dance to the music, wants you to pat him on the back.

Into the Music was about the first album where I felt, 'I'm starting here' ... the Wavelength thing, I didn't really feel that was me.

I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across.

There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

I shall drive my chariot down your street and cry hey it's me.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way ... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee ... Give me my rapture today.

Memories, how they linger in the twilight and in the wee small hours sometimes just before dawn.

You know what they're writing about Baby you know what they're writing about It's a thing called love down through the ages Makes you wanna cry sometimes Makes you feel like you wanna lay down and die sometimes Makes you high sometimes But when you really get in it lifts you right up.

Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.

Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.

Enlightenment, don't know what it is. It's up to you, the way you think.

When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn't the distance or the separation that there is now.

I had my eyes closed in the dark, I sighed a million sighs, I told a million lies, to myself, to myself.

You have to remember that writing those sorta songs is not reality, it's more like trance, dream, y'know, like dreamwork. The mythical thing can enter the creating but there's the mythical place and the real place. And there's both ... I get it between waking and sleeping. Or, when I'm doing something else. I don't sit down and think I'm gonna write about subject X or subject Y. I could be doing something and an impression comes in from outside and the song emerges out of that. It's never thought about or contrived.

Once in a blue moon someone like you comes along.

It's a marvelous night for a moondance!

I've got love in my life, as well as trouble and strife.

Illusions and pipe dreams on the one hand
And straight reality is always cold

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

There's always stress involved in any genre or art form, there's always going to be a struggle. If there's no struggle, you wouldn't do anything. What are you going do? Retire?

You can't stop us on the road to freedom, you can't stop us cause our eyes can see.

If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

Men come, men go, all things remain in God.

And I shall watch the ferry boats, and they'll get high, on a bluer ocean against tomorrow's sky. and i will never grow so old again, and i will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain ...

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dreams, where immobile steel rims crack and the ditch in the back roads stop. Could you find me?

Enlightenment says the world is nothing Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion And nothing is real.

Way over on the railroad, Tomorrow all the tipping trucks will unload together, Every scrapbook stuck with glue, And I'll stand beside you, Beside you, child.

Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea They thought great thoughts about liberty Poets wrote down words that did fit Writers wrote books Thinkers thought about it.

I am about the arrangements and the layers of depth in the music.

If you never hear from me that just means I would rather not.

This Hollywood ain't no good, I would rather be like Robin Hood.

Making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you my brown eyed girl.

There's an angel that's watching right over you All your trials have not been in vain Won't you lift your head up to the starry night Finding strength in the things that remain.

These are the days of the endless summer, these are the days, the time is now. There is no past, there's only future, there's only here, there's only now.

You have to understand a bit about the poetry of the blues to know where the references are coming from.

No guru, no method, no teacher, just you and I and nature, and the father in the garden.