J.J. Cale Quotes

Don't ever wrestle with a pig. You'll both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it.

Time plays a role in almost every decision. And some decisions define your attitude about time.

The only reason we wore sunglasses onstage was because we couldn't stand the sight of the audience.

Driving a race car is like dancing with a chain saw.

The avant-garde makes more sense to me.

If he'd just crowded me down to the side of the asphalt, I'd have been OK. But when he ran me completely off the racetrack, I lost it.

If you're all loaded up on love, you haven't got anywhere else to go.

When I sit down and play the guitar, Im 20 years old again.

Basically, I'm just a guitar player that figured out I wasn't ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing so I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.

If you don't take a chance-you won't have a chance.

If I'm interested in what I'm doing, other people will be interested in it.

What I enjoy most about being on stage is that the natural instruments give you a greater freedom with texture. When you use natural instruments they have their own resonance.

I missed out on my teenage years. I led a sheltered life. I was practicing scales instead of going out there and playing football.

I want to get lean and mean, keep it minimalist.

Everyone should be encouraged...in spiration and artistic freedom is the cornerstone of rock and roll.

If you've got bad news, you want to kick them blues, cocaine.

I knew Childress was going to help me because my crew told me on the radio. I really appreciate what Richard did, but that is typical of people in this sport.

I learn from thinking about the future, what hasn't been done yet. That's kind of my constant obsession.

In cities like New York and Austin, there's much more of a social context for music than in other places.

When somebody grabs a movement, you're kind of locked into it. It's all par for the course.

I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll.

Growing up in Wales was a pretty Draconian experience with religion.

I like what the future holds. I don't like thinking about the past.

During a race, it's like I become a machine and the machine becomes a man. I talk to my cars, baby them, shout at them, praise them.

I'm writing a movie about Mozart going to New York in the '60s. I've been reading so many novels.

The value of having a computer, to me, is that it'll remember everything you do. It's a databank.

I like it here in New York. I like the idea of having to keep eyes in the back of your head all the time.

I'm impatient. I get twitchy. When I get that feeling I just go out and make something happen.

I'm content with making records, but I don't want to be doing the same thing all the time.

People sort of know me for that solo piano music I did.

We gave up on the idea of trying to make the record a good representation of the live performance.

I never use the word, it's loaded. What love means to me is need.

In the studio you have pretty much carte blanche with whatever you're doing. You can turn natural instruments into electronic instruments.

It would be a stronger world, a stronger, loving world, to die in.

That's what my life is, writing songs.

There was a time where I was the youngest one in any group, and now when I turn around sometimes, I'm the oldest one in every group. It just seemed to flip-flop one day - it wasn't a gradual thing.

Fine, but if and when the zombies team up with the mummies to take over the world, you can't live in my underground bunker.