A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.
All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
An artistic bent is innate. Then there are those who work on their technique, because good art has a lot to do with technique. And that can be learned.
Anybody can do bad work, but not everybody does good work.
Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.
Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.
As I got older, I got better-looking. Which is the reverse of what happens to most people. I lost weight. I worked on my hair so it would look better.
As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.
Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
Between the ages of 15 and 22, I had made only one very minor hit, so I expected everything to be a flop. I was utterly amazed that The Sound of Silence was a big hit.
Both of us had a significant amount of studio time prior to our Columbia recording days. I did a lot of demos.
By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.
Central Park was done because there was an overwhelming demand. People seemed to like those songs, which I found surprising, because I felt they were dated.
Columbia Records was reluctant to stop our patterns of work because they were successful.
During the psychedelic days, records faded in and out; things became other things.
Everybody wanted to have two guys who had their differences and split up and then came back together and resolved them and lived happily ever after.
Facts can be turned into art if one is artful enough.
Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone.
Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.
How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.
I always get very calm with baseball.
I always looked for partnership because I probably felt I couldn't do it myself. I would have been afraid or embarrassed. So I looked to work with a bunch of people.
I did Loves Me with a Gospel quartet. I went to Alabama to play with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section. I was the first white pop artist to play with them.
I didn't get how big it was until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.
I don't believe what the papers are saying They're just out to capture my dime, Exaggerating this, exaggerating that.
I don't consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I'm growing.
I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That's not to say that I'm not happy.
I don't like fashion. It's very heartless.
I don't think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act.
I don't very often think I've done a good job. I don't like the majority of what I do. I shouldn't say I don't like it, but I'm not satisfied with almost everything that I do.
I feel I should try to reveal. When you hit it right, you produce an emotional response in the listener that can be cathartic. When you're wrong, you're soppy, sentimental.
I lived in an attached house. My father used to drive into the wrong driveway all the time. He'd say, Damn it, how do you tell one of these houses from another?
I question what emotion Manilow touches. People are entertained by him. But are they emotionally moved? I don't believe anything that Barry Manilow sings.
I rate each album as better than the last one. That's how I see it.
I stopped smoking dope. It made things worse. I didn't smoke another joint for 11 years.
I suppose an artist takes the elements of his life and rearranges them and then has them perceived by others as though they were the elements of their lives.
I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.
I think I have a superior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it.
I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don't get sentimental. I think we're all afraid to reveal our hearts. It's not at all in fashion.
I wanted to sing other types of songs that Simon and Garfunkel wouldn't do. For me it was a chance to gamble a little bit; it's been so long since it was a gamble.
I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It's chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.
I would be willing to do almost anything to make Art happy. I care about our friendship. The only thing I won't do is change the essence of my work.
I'm more interested in what I discover than what I invent.
I'm not in it for the money. I like music. I love to write music. I can't imagine myself not playing or singing or writing. It would just drive me crazy if I didn't.
I've always written slowly, but I'd never really had a block. I was really depressed. I had a severe loss of faith over the response to One-trick Pony.
If it were a drug and I could buy it, I'd spend all my money on it.
If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.
Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
In the '60s, you didn't do that. You didn't separate yourself from the people. You didn't covet money. If it came to you, fine. It was an idealistic time.
It takes me a certain amount of time to write. I'm not very prolific.
It was hard and boring to travel so much. But when we did go out, we went to places we wanted to play, Paris or London.
It's a big error to think that because you like somebody's work, you're going to like him.
It's pointless to be critical of your stuff once it's done. I don't spend a lot of time agonising over it. It's of no importance once it's finished.
It's strange enough to be in Germany, and when I finished playing, I was thinking, I hate Homeward Bound. Then I thought, Well, that's not a bad song at all for a 22-year-old kid.
Listen to the sound of silence.
Mrs. Robinson is a little dated now, but it has nothing to do with Joe DiMaggio.
Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.
My life so common it disappears and sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.
My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. I'm not a good enough guitarist to improvise on it.
My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the only thing I find interesting.
Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.
One of the things that upset me was some of the criticism leveled at Simon and Garfunkel. I always took exception to it, but actually I agree with a lot of it.
People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.
Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.
Sometimes you fit the words right to the track. You play with the feel of the track.
The bigger you get, the more of a strain it is, because you're less used to compromising. But in a partnership you have to compromise. You're not the boss.
The moment of euphoria is when you have the breakthrough and you say it, and then begin to shape and deal with what I've created.
The reason I'd been blocked was that I felt what I did was of absolutely no importance.
The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.
The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.
The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.
There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.
There's something about the sound of a train that's very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful.
Those English songs tend to sound like they have a connection. A lot of these songs are written in the past, and I proceeded to write more about alienation.
To get the stuff out of you, especially if what you're dealing with is yourself, requires you to open up and touch tender spots. You have to be anesthetized a little bit.
Two things come to mind that are euphoric for me. One is the universal euphoric: sex. The other is when I create something that moves me.
We got on American Bandstand, where kids would dance to a record and then rate it. We called ourselves Tom and Jerry. I was Jerry.
We had just finished working on this television special, which really wiped us out. We were very tired.
We had many more points of agreement than we had points of difference, but we did differ, and the bigger we got, the more insistent we got that each one of us should have his way.
We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the '60s. But I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with 500,000 people. In a certain sense, it was numbing.
We knew each other for so long that we were able to talk in a virtual shorthand. And our senses of humour were the same.
We were always able to sing and blend well together; that's our gift. But aside from that, we're really two different guys.
We'd been singing since we were 13, so we really knew each other's voice. And we didn't have too many problems in compromising.
We've survived by believing our life is going to get better.
When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.
When I left CBS, it became company policy there to make life as difficult as possible for me. It ended only when I threatened to subpoena people.
When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal.
When we came into the studio I became more and more me, making the tracks and choosing the musicians, partly because a great deal of the time during Bridge, Artie wasn't there.
Who am I to blow against the wind?
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?
Without Arthur's voice, I never would have enjoyed that success.
You start with an impulse and go to what your ear likes.
You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.
Paul was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as part of Simon and Garfunkel.
Paul regrets only one song he has written and performed and that was Feelin Groovy.
Paul was the co-host of Saturday Night Live in 1975.
Paul was the Simon in the group Simon and Garfunkel. A music duo who hit the big times in the 60’s and 70’s.
Paul children with his current wife are Adrian Edward, Lulu and Gabriel.
Paul married Carrie Fisher on August 16, 1983 and divorced in July of 1984.
Paul was studying law when he decided to leave school and pursue his music career in 1964.
Paul was friends with Art Garfunkel in school and they wrote their first song together called Hey Schoolgirl. They wrote the song under the names of Tom and Jerry.
In 1994 when the movie Forrest Gump premiered, Paul song Mrs. Robinson was a hit song in the movie.
Paul music compositions were used throughout the movie Intolerable Cruelty which was released in 2003.
The Only Living Boy in New York was a song used by Paul in the movie Garden State which was released in 2004.
Paul has work done under many different names. Some of them are Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Kane, Jerry Landis, Simon, True Taylor and Tico.
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