Billy Joel quotes: Piano Man’s most popular soundbites.
“You can get what you want or you can just get old.”
“Don’t wait for answers, just take your chances.”
“You can linger too long in your dreams.”
“You’ve got your passion. You’ve got your pride. But don’t you know that only fools are satisfied? Dream on.”
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”
“You may be wrong, but you may be right.”
“Take risks. Take chances. Don’t be afraid. You gotta go into life brave.”
“You’ll learn more from your accidents than anything that you could ever learn at school. We’re only human, we’re supposed to make mistakes.”
“Don’t be afraid to try again – everyone goes south every now and then.”
“It’s okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.”
“You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes, but they’re the only things that you can truly call your own.”
“Do what you love, and you’ll always love what you do.”
“If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.”
“Some people stay away from the door for the chance of it opening up.”
“I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new.”
“Out of respect for the things that I was never destined to do, I have learned that my strengths are a result of my weaknesses, my success is due to my failures, and my style is directly related to my limitations.”
“The joy of life is made up of obscure and seemingly mundane victories that give us our own small satisfactions.”
“Advice is cheap; you can take it from me.”
“Slow down, you’re doing fine. You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.”
“I’ve lived long enough to have learned, the closer you get to the fire, the more you get burned.”
“You look so polished from your hair down to your toes, but still your finger’s gonna pick your nose.”
“As human beings, we need to know that we are not alone, that we are not crazy or completely out of our minds, that there are other people out there who feel as we do, live as we do, love as we do, who are like us.”
“Don’t take any sh*t from anybody.”
“Our parents’ generation had it a lot tougher than we did. And it was a great example for us. I guess we grew up with a certain amount of the ethics our parents had, which is, you know: work hard, make your own way, be independent.”
“Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.”
“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.”
“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. My songs are like my kids.”
“Historically, musicians know what it is like to be outside the norm – walking the high wire without a safety net. Our experience is not so different from those who march to the beat of different drummers.”
“I started taking piano lessons when I was about four years old. My parents were both musicians. So I took piano lessons. I didn’t like the lessons very much, but I was enchanted by music. Music always transported me somewhere. Singing made me feel good and being able to play the piano made me feel good.”
“I have to thank my mother for paying for the piano lessons for all those years.”
“I didn’t graduate high school, so I never got a teacher’s education, I’m mostly self-read, self-taught. I always loved music, so I would probably either be in a band with another group of people, or an arranger, a producer, a musicologist, a music history guy, something to do with music. Either that, or I would probably be in jail. Or dead.”
“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.”
“When I first started I didn’t know a lot about the job, so I kinda had to figure it out by wire, ya know? It was hit and miss, I made mistakes, and fortunately I was able to recover from most of ’em. But I promised myself if I ever get to a point where I can help somebody that’s trying to learn how to do this, that I would try to do that.”
“Most people you’d tell, ‘I’m gonna be a musician,’ they’d say, ‘You’re crazy, you’re gonna starve, you’re gonna be poor, a drug addict, go to jail, you’ll never make it, there’s too much competition, it’s a terrible business,’ etc. But my chorus teacher in high school said, ‘You’ve got what it takes to be a really good professional musician, you should consider it.’ That was an epiphany for me. So I thought, well, maybe I can help somebody, too.”
“I am the entertainer, the idol of my age. I make all kinds of money when I go on the stage. You see me in the papers, I’ve been in the magazines. But if I go cold, I won’t get sold. I get put in the back in the discount rack, like another can of beans.”
“Usually when I’m writing, I try to write fairly quickly. If a song sits around too long, it starts to take on a stink. Most of my songs are written in one sitting, two sittings maybe. Those are the ones I like the best, anyway.”
“I’ve written a bunch of stuff that no one’s ever heard, and I don’t know if they ever will. I’m just doing it for my own edification.”
“Even when I stop performing or stop making records I won’t stop being creative. Songwriting is a good outlet. 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.”
“For whatever reason, not all people are born with the particular gift of being able to express ourselves through music. And, believe me, it is a gift.”
“You want to give people a reason to hate my guts more? I’m making more money.”
“I may be an antique like [The Rolling] Stones, but antiques are valuable.”
“I sold my house to Jerry Seinfeld.”
“Do what’s good for you, or you’re not good for anybody.”
“We might be laughing a bit too loud, but that never hurt no one.”
“We all end in the ocean. We all start in the streams. We’re all carried along, by the river of dreams.”
“The good ole days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”
“As long as there are memories, yesterday remains. As long as there is hope, tomorrow awaits. As long as there is friendship, today is beautiful.”
“I’m not sure about life after this; God knows I’m not a spiritual man.”
“You can’t go the distance with too much resistance.”
“There will be other words some other day; that is the story of my life.”
Related: Elton John quotes.
