Musicians know all about unemployment. You’re unemployed a lot, and I think there’s a great deal of empathy between musicians and people who are out of work.
BILLY JOELI could walk away from anyone I ever knew, but I can’t walk away from you.
More Billy Joel Quotes
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In hell there’s a big hotel where the bar just closed and the windows never opened. No phone so you can’t call home, and the TV works, but the clicker is broken.
BILLY JOEL -
Remember how I found you there alone in your electric chair, I told you dirty jokes until you smiled.
BILLY JOEL -
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.
BILLY JOEL -
There ain’t much future for a man who works the sea, there ain’t no island left for islanders like me.
BILLY JOEL -
We’re on the verge of all things new.
BILLY JOEL -
She can kill with her smile, she can wound with her eyes.
BILLY JOEL -
I never said I wasn’t going to play any more. I don’t know where that came from.
BILLY JOEL -
I didn’t graduate high school, so I never got a teacher’s education, I’m mostly self-read, self-taught.
BILLY JOEL -
Most of my songs are written in one sitting, two sittings maybe. Those are the ones I like the best, anyway.
BILLY JOEL -
I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.
BILLY JOEL -
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.
BILLY JOEL -
Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.
BILLY JOEL -
…And you’re the only one who knows.
BILLY JOEL -
Hot funk, cold punk, even if it’s old junk, it’s still rock and roll to me.
BILLY JOEL -
I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.
BILLY JOEL -
I’m in a New York state of mind
BILLY JOEL -
There’s a deep-seated paranoia that Americans have about not being Americans or something.
BILLY JOEL -
Mozart wrote some 40 symphonies, and they were all phenomenal. That doesn’t mean Beethoven was a lesser writer, it’s just some guys are capable of more productivity, some guys take more time.
BILLY JOEL -
There’s an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin.
BILLY JOEL -
Don’t make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money.
BILLY JOEL -
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.
BILLY JOEL -
I don’t know why people thought I was retiring.
BILLY JOEL -
Why do musicians give so much time to charitable causes? The most humanitarian cause that we can give our time to is the creation and performance of music itself.
BILLY JOEL -
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.
BILLY JOEL -
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.
BILLY JOEL -
My songs are like my kids.
BILLY JOEL