Donovan Quotes

The song This Kiss was definitely my breakthrough song. After that, Breathe was my breakthrough album.

As a member of Guess Who, I think 'No Time' was the best thing we ever did. It was a pivotal song in our career.

It's time to move on to the next step in the psychedelic revolution. We've reached a certain point, but we're not moving any more.

Revolutions are of no us;, it is necessary to work on transforming the brain: on sowing a different knowledge/awareness, on creating a new conscience, that is like a magic box full of brains.

I've been blessed because there are a lot of great singers out there that didn't make it past their first album.

In my early days, I sang rock stuff, but the career didn't kick until '67.

But it's hard to support yourself from music when nobody knows you.

A moment for me that changed everything was hearing my song on the radio for the first time.

There's just so many great artists out there, but I think growing up, J. Cole has been the guy that I've always been listening to, even in college. Going from that struggle to stardom, that rise to stardom, 'Dolla and a Dream,' all that stuff - I've listened to all his classics, all the old J. Cole stuff.

San Diego is where I really started to get my legs, musically.

I'm scared of being a one-hit wonder because my second single has set the bar too high.

If we'd had a Svengali manager and done what we would have been told, maybe we would have had a bigger, more hugely successful career.

Everything around me is surreal. I get picked up in cars and go to celebrity bashes, and I get sponsorship on clothes, and it's great, and I really enjoy it. But you should remember where it all started: the music. That's the key.

I never set out to be a rock star, I set out to be a working musician.

I'm going to go with this pop/soul genre that I'm really loving and have always loved. I hope it does well for me, and I'm really excited about the future!

L.A. is a big city that has a lot of music in it but is not necessarily known for it. A lot of musicians got lost in that. You can make a living; you can gig a lot within the city and never get out of it. That was something that me and my friends, our generation, were afraid of happening to us.

Songwriter friends will be like, 'Oh my God, when are you going to put out 'Love Triangle?'' It's just been that song for me that really helped me get a lot of writing sessions and helped jump-start my writing career.

If you think the music business is the be-all and end-all of life, you're in big trouble.

Everybody always thinks you have to move out of the city and go where the music industry is, but it's possible in Louisville, and it's possible anywhere. You just have to believe.

I did a double CD, 'The Element of Surprise,' in 1998. That album went gold.

At the end of the day, I was getting really close to quitting. I was starting to accept that maybe I'm just going to be a SoundCloud singer, and that's when Dreamville came and saved me.

I wanted to be the country version of Stevie Nicks, but before you knew it, I was heading in a pop direction, touring the world, having No. 1 singles, and loving every minute of it.

I really believed that my songs were good enough for the whole world to listen to. I had fans from America or the U.K. who would be like, 'Oh my God, I love your music'.

My first manager chose the name Engelbert Humperdinck for me. My real name is Arnold George Dorsey. It didn't really quite hit the entertainment industry the way it should have. But when my manager chose the name Engelbert Humperdinck, I had a hit record immediately, which was called 'Release Me.'

I was doing sold-out shows before I got radio play.