Lionel Quotes

Let the music play on would be my legacy.

The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

When you do a good turn you feel rich, even if you are broke.

Forget about 40 years in show business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie is enough.

I find myself going out on the road to get my confidence back, because I lose it at home.

Simplicity is the key to what I do.

Jews are just like everyone else, only more so.

I found that when I did something for the sake of heaven, heaven happened. These things changed my life. I owe them to my encounter with Christianity.

I didn't want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn't want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.

To my surprise, my 70s are nicer than my 60s and my 60s than my 50s, and I wouldn't wish my teens and 20s on my enemies.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

I just had to find all my friends that used to be in the business. As I say, the music business didn't die, it just moved to Nashville.

Give the opponents more than one reason to stare at your feet.

I'm easy like Sunday Morning.

I literally fell among Quakers when I went up to Oxford.

Something deep in my character allows me to take the hits and get on with trying to win.

Lincoln said, 'With malice toward none, with charity to all.' Nowadays they say, 'Think the way I do or I'll bomb the daylights outta you.'

Today we've learned to celebrate mediocrity. Back in the day we had creative artists; today we have created artists.

Sometimes you have to accept you can't win all the time.

I can remember when nobody believed an actor and didn't care what he believed.

For a Christian, Jesus is the unique and only way that God has fully revealed himself. For a Jew this cannot be.

For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.

What marks the artist is his power to shape the material of pain we all have.

To change, to convert? Why bother?

I began to see that my problems, seen spiritually, were really my soul's plusses.

I learnt pity, sympathy, and what it was like to be at the other end of the stick. Such lessons can't be learnt in lecture halls.

I have ended as a Reform Rabbi, grateful to Christianity for so many good things.

I find the greatest songs in the world come out of pain, and I don't like it! Here's what it does: It strips away all of your facade. It makes you so honest. It's cleansing.

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.

Nah, I've always had a great relationship with my two brothers, I have always had their support in my football and in everything. They've been very close to me and we have a great relationship.

Unless we insist that politics is imagination and mind, we will learn that imagination and mind are politics, and of a kind we will not like.

I was not comfortable worshipping another Jew.

I have fun like a child in the street. When the day comes when I'm not enjoying it, I will leave football.

Funny how you dig yourself into a hole by the teaspoon.

Man, as long as people want to hear Jazz, I'll give it to them.

I would pass onto any young player to enjoy your football, play your football as you want to play the game, try and enjoy it and make the most of it.

All art is communication of the artists' ideas, sounds, thoughts; without that no one will support the artist.

For my part, I try to do my bit to make people's lives more bearable, in particular children across the globe who are having problems.

I just get on with my game and let the referees do their job.

One of the Arsenal players came up to me afterwards and said it had been an honor to be on the same pitch as me. I thought, My God, that is a great thing to say when your team has just lost.

Black widows may be powerful predators, but every predator is somebody else's prey.

The music business was not safe, but it was FUN. It was like falling in love with a woman you know is bad for you, but you love every minute with her, anyway.

It's far less important to me to be liked these days than to be understood.

But what's so great about being a perfectionist?... You do all this work, and then the stuff you've made just pisses you off.

I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.

Old friends die on you, and they're irreplaceable. You become dependent.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.

Country music has always been about as close to R&B as you can possibly get. We're storytellers.