Don McLean Quotes

It felt like I'd been playing second-string football for a long time, when, suddenly, I was playing in the Super Bowl. Even when 'Basic Instinct' was a hit, I still felt like I was running with that ball toward the end zone. It took awhile for me to realize that I was already in the end zone with the ball down and the crowd screaming on its feet.

We give kudos to people who have succeeded. We don't care in what they succeeded as long as they succeeded. The worst thing that can happen to anybody in this cultural environment is to fail.

To be honest like when you work at something for a long time and then coming to a family of people who support what you do hmm... you are very lucky!

Even if you're the greatest of all time, people are not just going to give it to you. It's a great lesson.

Don’t listen to what people tell you because they’ll try to bring you down. And don’t listen to yourself, either, because yourself will try to bring you down even more so than anyone else. As long as you just put all your energy into one thing, it can happen.

Success goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an ounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.

You've got to make haste while it's still light of day. My godmother used to say, I don't want to rust out, I just want to work out. If you stand still long enough, people will throw dirt on you.

If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.

I was so unsuccessful for so long. I was used to the word no. I was used to you're not good enough or not quite there or you need to fix this about you. So I am honestly walking in faith every single day that I am going to be able to handle whatever God has for me. I am not used to being in a place where people appreciate my work and understand my work and want to be a part of my work and getting something out of my work because for so long it was so misunderstood. The success part for me is the hardest part and everyday I'm still battling.

What I've seen in my own life is that when I get something important done it's because of a lot of other people - some who get credit, some who don't.

I thought about all the people that told me I couldn't do it and told me I couldn't get there.

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitate to get in the way if you're moving.

The greatest failure is not to try. Had I listened to all the people during the course of my life who said, "You can't. You'll fail. It won't work. You don't have...," I wouldn't be here today.

Of course when people are as talented as Jim O'Rourke or Gene Coleman, pretty soon you know that they're going to be part of the bigger scene anyway.

People respond to a guy who is trapped and succeeds on some level and fails on another.

What is failure? We can’t possibly know what failure is. Most people think they do, but that’s because they’re judging how their lives should be and what they need it to be: a success. Who is to say what’s a success and what’s a failure? Do your best. Trust. Relax. Do your best. Enjoy yourself.

No great undertaking ever looks like it's winnable. That only comes later and only if you are lucky and are willing to fight and have a group of folks around you that are willing to do the same thing, too.

If you hang in there long enough, you will eventually reach your goal.

Anything is possible as long as you're focused, determined and you really want to do it.

It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

The time when you need to do something is when people are saying it can't be done.

Without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist.

Anyone can do something when they want to do it. Really successful people do things when they don't want to do it.

People will try to label you not good enough, too slow, too old, too many mistakes. You can't stop negative comments or prevent negative labels, but you can choose to not let them hold you back.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.