Jimmy Buffett Quotes

Success is just hanging out with my kids. I mean, I always say if you have options, you're rich. To me, success is the fact that hey, I just did a movie and maybe I'll do some stand up, maybe I'll will write a book or maybe I will do a play.

I live near San Francisco in the most beautiful spot on earth and enjoy myself in many ways. Yes, I love to work, which for now is to think and read and write, so it's all a dream come true.

I want to read books and go for walks and make dinner. I guess there are people who love working and that's great. I'm not one of them. I love tackling roles and I love theater, but filming, I don't get it. It seems mind-numbing to me.

And much as I enjoy writing and creating stuff, I don't enjoy it so much that I am willing to give up any time that could otherwise be spent performing.

I do get approached every day by people who say, 'Why don't you make more movies?' I don't really miss it when I get to go and watch my daughter in the Christmas pageant.

I spend many evenings reading or continuing the day's work, but I also enjoy playing the piano, jogging, and traveling with the family.

if I'd thought that nobody would like it as I was writing it, I would have written it even more. But I never think of the audience. I never think of people reading. I never think of people, period.

I could always write songs, act, get into politics, or stay home with the kids. But I've got to have some fun.

Instead of growing old gracefully, at home with my family - reading and writing and praying and thinking - too much of my time has been spent at airports and in hotels.

I just want to move forward with what I love to do. I also love to travel and I love my family. If I have a gig and I'm going to do that, great. If not, I'll go visit my family or do a bit of traveling. I try to keep life full, in every way.

This is the way life goes in Big Sur. Waiting for the mail, watching the sea-lions in the surf or the freighters on the horizon, sitting in the tubs at Hot Springs, once in a while a bit of drink - and, most of the time, working at what ever it is that you came here to work on, whether it be painting, writing, gardening or the simple art of living your own life.

There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party of six, and to be traveling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.

Ten years from now I plan to be sitting here, looking out over my land. I hope I'll be writing books, but if not, I'll be on my pond fishing with my kids. I feel like the luckiest guy I know.

I'm happy to have interns at The Weekly Standard and happy to have readers of The Weekly Standard, but if you all tell me that you were busy reading Plato and [Lev] Tolstoy and playing violin in the orchestra, I'd say that was great. I wouldn't tell you to take time out from that to get involved in political journalism.

When I didn't have a family, I was much more of a workaholic. I still like to work, but I also want to be home with them. As you get older, you realize you need balance. If it's not fun, what's the point?

I struggle sometimes superficially with my management or with my own career about how much time I spend traveling or giving myself away to promote my music or myself when I'd rather be gardening or surfing or being at home with my loved ones. And everyone struggles with that; everyone struggles with having to go to work. And I struggle with how humankind ended up this way.

I built a studio in my house so I can be with my kids. I go out to my approval meetings [for my collection] while they nap, but at least I can sing [at home] while they sleep at night.

When I take up my pen, nothing can happen to me. Fate, remember that.

I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it's disorderly it's not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.

Naturally, people's image is of a performer, but the reality of it is the writing for me has always been the most important thing and the most rewarding thing.

I'm going to continue writing. I'll always be a storyteller. But I'm also taking time to enjoy my life.

We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Because we really don't love what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems, if you really loved it you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not.

From where I started to where I'm at right now I'm loaded in retrospect to the opportunities that I have. As far as money and the scheme of the world, I don't cash in. I do films because I'm sensitive and maybe stupid, and that I feel like I'm going to have fun on and feel like I'm going to have a good experience with. It's not about punching in and selling soap.

You've got to do something to fill up your day. And I can only play so much guitar and watch so many TV shows. It fulfills me. There are two things about it I like: It makes me happy, and it makes other people happy.

Right when I started getting solid was when I was offered a lot of writing work. And when The Ben Stiller Show was picked up, I realized there was no way for me to do stand-up three or four nights a week and run this television show with Ben. So that was the moment when I had to make a choice.