“If there’s not love present, it’s much, much harder to function. When there’s love present, it’s easier to deal with life.”

I was very, very financially secure my whole life. I have been very lucky to say that.

I like the piano – I’m always about 15 feet away from a piano.

I always do get a little bit paranoid when I get a lot of attention. But I get used to it.

I have auditory hallucinations, I hear voices saying derogatory things, like I’m terrible and I’m going to die, and they’re usually worse in the afternoon.

All of the artists did such a beautiful job I can’t thank them enough. I’m just honored that ‘God Only Knows’ was chosen. ‘God Only Knows’ is a very special song. An extremely spiritual song and one of the best I’ve ever written.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Phil Spector. Those were my idols.

I’m happy; I’m a happy person.

I can write songs, I’ve had songs in movies, but I can’t compose film scores, you know?

Surfing music is dead. It was just a summer craze for kids on the beach. I’m finished with it.

I’d earned over a million dollars by the time I was old enough to vote.

I meditate and I also think about meditation. Which is funny. I think about Maharishi, about just the idea of meditating. It gives me something.

I’m not a genius. I’m just a hard-working guy.

I’m doing good. I’ve had a slight nervous breakdown in the ’60s. I got through that. And I got through the ’70s. And I was in a doctor’s program during the ’80s and then I met Melinda and we’ve been together ever since. I’ve got a happy life.

You don’t really know what to believe until the Government denies it.

Gershwin inspired me very much. The concept of ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ was inspired by ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ – not influenced, but inspired.

I’m just a shy and retreating kind of person. Sometimes I get in a real talkative mood – but not very often.

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn’t want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.

It is not a matter of thinking a great deal but of loving a great deal, so do whatever arouses you most to love.

Don’t imagine that, if you had a great deal of time, you would spend more of it in prayer. Get rid of that idea; it is no hindrance to prayer to spend your time well.

If you can stare hard at your problems, they almost always shrink or disappear, because you almost always find a better way of dealing with them than if you don’t face them head on. The more difficult the problem, the more important it is that you stare at it and deal with it.

I’m not the businessman. I don’t deal with the business at all. Not anymore. Occasionally, every four years or five years, they tell me I’ve run out of money, I have to go and make some more.

Sometimes you have to deal / Devilishly with drowning men in order to swim them to shore.

Sometimes life knocks you on your ass… get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.