Billy Joel Quotes

More than art, more than literature, music is universally accessible.

In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

In a way, we are magicians. We are alchemists, sorcerers and wizards. We are a very strange bunch. But there is great fun in being a wizard.

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.

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.

I don't care what consequence it brings, I have been a fool for lesser things.

I did write a letter to the archdiocese who'd banned the song, Only the Good Die Young, asking them to ban my next record.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.

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.

I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.

You're not the only one who's made mistakes, but they're the only things that you can truly call your own.

Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

I definitely prefer being a lover than a fighter.

Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?

There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex.

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.

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.

Artist - musicians, painters, writers, poets, always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.

I keep telling people: Don't make me the poster boy for AA because I don't know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - the sinners are much more fun.

I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.

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.

I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.

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.