James Taylor Quotes

I feel like a lot of people can relate to my music.

I think that the best part of music is when it comes from a real place and has an ability to kind of connect on a much larger scale. It no longer is a personal thing, it becomes everyone else's thing as well.

It's just so weird when an entire nation knows what you are going through.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

I guess initially I was amazed that somebody would see something within my work that they could really relate to, but the more it's happened, the more people have come forward, I've really realized that we're all kind of going through the same thing at the same time.

Audiences respond in entirely different ways. One thing is unanimous - music binds us altogether.

Some films clearly seem to divide people. And I do think there's something incredibly exciting about the commonality of us as human beings, which some films are lucky enough to tap into.

When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.

You're creating an intimacy that everybody feels, that it's their experience, not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say, now this song is about 'my' broken heart.

When I make art, I think about its ability to connect with others, to bring them into the process.

Every song you're trying to find something that going to connect in different ways but for me the songs that I'm really drawn to are inspirational, songs that lift you and that everybody can relate to no matter where you're from.

It used to be that we felt that when we went to a theater, a legitimate theater... that we were going to share an experience together. That when we walked away where there would be something to talk about in that movie that had some meaning and relevance in our lives. And I think that we have lost that.

Basically, any time you have a real life experience, that can be a song. Because no matter how crazy or weird you are, somebody's had an experience just like you, somewhere.

The blues brings you back into the fold. The blues isn't about the blues, it's about we have all had the blues and we are all in this together.

Everybody reading the same book at the same time pulls people together. It does start a conversation. If you're going to read 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,' you're going to talk about heartbreak and loss and all of those things that people don't talk about as a community.

Sympathy relies on a common experience. If you're clumsy, you might have sympathy for others who tend to bump into things. Empathy, on the other hand, is the ability to understand another person's feelings even if you've never experienced them yourself.

I wanted people to connect to me on that level where I can write about anything, but it would still make someone feel a certain way.

Music is emotion; it's a beautiful thing that connects people despite their age or differences or cultural differences and anything. We are still the same, and we can love the same things.

I want somebody to hear my song and say, 'You know, man, I've been through that.'

It all changed when I realized I'm not the only one on the planet who's scared. Everyone else is, too. I started asking people, Are you scared, too? You bet your sweet life I am. Aha, so that's the way it is for you, too. We were all in the same boat. That's probably what is so effective at our workshops. When I ask, Who else feels like this? the whole room of hands goes up. People realize they are not the only one who feels that way.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to reflect on the music itself and then write lyrics that I feel anyone can relate to. It's not my dreaming tree that is dead. The feeling of a loss of hope is universal. There are moments that we've all felt a little bit of it, so I don't think it is something that is too hard to identify with.

There is a secret, I think. When you are front of a camera there is something that happens. Some relationship, some movement, some strange kind of suspension. That's where you find the layer in yourself that is duplicated in everyone. And when you get it right, if you can imagine all the hearts beating in one beat, it's like that. It's beautiful.

The tools are real. The viewer is real, you, the artist, is real and a part of everything you paint. You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you. All you have to do it with is a brush, some chemical and canvas, and technique.

It's the universal feeling that we all are alone - that we're all different. I think the movie's one resounding theme is that everybody feels the same, and we're all alone together. Some people come up to me on the street and thank me for helping them get through their teen years.

When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.