Van Morrison quotes:

There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

Hearing the blues changed my life.

I've never felt like I was born with a silver spoon at all, although I've felt like howling at the moon a lot of times!

When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

The future is keeping you out of the present time.

Singing is my profession - there is no plan B.

If it's what you do and you can do it, then you do it.

Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

Once in a blue moon someone like you comes along.

A famous person to themselves, they don't get up in the morning and think, I'm famous. I'm not famous to me. Famous is a perception.

My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing.

I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.

I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.

I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.

Making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you my brown eyed girl.

If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dreams, where immobile steel rims crack and the ditch in the back roads stop. Could you find me?

When it's not always raining there'll be days like this. When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this. When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch. Well my mama told me there'll be days like this.

When you hear the music ringin' in your soul And you feel it in your heart and it grows and grows And it comes from the backstreet rock & roll and the healing has begun

As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.

Every performance is different. That's the beauty of it.

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

When all the dark clouds roll away And the sun begins to shine I see my freedom from across the way And it comes right in on time Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light And it comes from the sky above Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me And lights my life with love.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee... Give me my rapture today.

You can't stay the same. If you're a musician and a singer, you have to change, that's the way it works.

There's an angel that's watching right over you All your trials have not been in vain Won't you lift your head up to the starry night Finding strength in the things that remain.

In deep confusion, in great despair, when I reach out for him, he is there. When I am lonely as I can be, then I know God shines his light on me.

I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that.

From the dark end of the street - To the bright side of the road - We'll be lovers once again on the - Bright side of the road

Someone once described me as a maverick and that's what I would say. I'm a maverick not by choice but by conviction.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

Illusions and pipe dreams on the one hand And straight reality is always cold

Well I've got to get out of the rat-race now I'm tired of the ways of mice and men And the empires all turning into rust again. Out of everything nothing remains the same That's why I'm cloud hidden Cloud hidden Whereabouts unknown.

You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense.

hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic...

and I shall watch the ferry boats, and they'll get high, on a bluer ocean against tomorrow's sky. and i will never grow so old again, and i will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain...

In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.

Love of the simple is all that I need, I've no time for schism or lovers of greed.

Smell the sea and feel the sky.

In the gentle evening freeze, by the whispering shady trees I will find sanctuary in the Lord.

The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

The summer breeze was blowing on your face Within your violet you treasure your summery words And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine Ignited me in daylight and nature in the garden

Do you remember the time darlin' when everything made more sense in the world? Oh I remember, I remember... when life made more sense... Take me back, take me back, take me way back... to when life made more sense.

Leave your thoughtlessness behind you then you may begin to understand. Clear the emptiness around you with the waving of your hand.

Don't want to discuss it, I think it's time for a change You may get disgusted, some think that I'm strange In that case I'll go underground, get some heavy rest Never have to worry, about what is worst and what is best.

Going down the old mine with a transistor radio.

If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

Common one, my illuminated one, oh my high in the art of suffering. Take a walk with me.

Into the Music was about the first album where I felt, 'I'm starting here'...the Wavelength thing, I didn't really feel that was me.

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.

What you see is what you get.

[Being alcoholic ] you're either too high or you're too low. I mean, I was always looking for the bell to ring. I was always waiting for that bell.

[Jazz musicians ] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

[Jean-Paul ] Sartre was a throwback to the existential period. I'm not really so much into that these days. I went through a period of going over things and looking at them again to see what they were. But I'm into psychiatry type things. I'm into philosophy. I'm into that sort of thing.

[Rock 'n' roll] is still a primitive form and there's no way you can get away from that. It's one of the primitive art forms and that's why it's good and that's why it's lasted...you know, it hasn't become sophisticated and it's not in the opera house.

[Rock 'n' roll] music started out with some cat banging a log with a couple of pieces of stick. He sent a message across a river and although the cat on the other side receiving the message didn't know the exact words, he did understand basically something about what was being communicated.

[The music is about ] for the purpose of getting people to an excitement level. They feel something, they feel emotions. They're going to go home after that concert and remember it.Maybe they got something out of the experience rather than intellectualizing about what songs mean which is the whole head trip.

[Touring] is not necessarily a priority. It's just a part of who I am as a performer. That's obviously why I'm doing it; why I'm in this business is part of me has to perform.

[You Got To Make It Through The World] it's kind of a survival song. Survival is what's happening and it's basically a song about that.

A fantabulous night to make romance.

A lot of things come together to make up a song. It's just images.

All the girls walk by dressed up for each other, and the boys do the boogie woogie on the corner of the street.

Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner.

And I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will fold into the mystic

Any artist is an instrument-and that's exactly why you can't do it all the time. You can only do it when it's happening, when it's coming through. No matter how much you may want to do it, if it's not happening then it's simply not happening.

At the end of the day, we should give thanks and pray, to the one, to the one.

Basically I got an insight into what it really was through Alcoholics Anonymous. One day the switchboard lit up and I saw where it was all going. I saw what alcohol could do to people and I saw that it wasn't a good thing anymore. Plus I wasn't a teenager anymore myself.

Become enraptured by the sights and sounds in intrigue of nature and beauty, come along with me and take it all in. Come here my love.

Britain is not the same anymore of course. It's never the same.

Definitely Muddy Waters has been a prime influence for anybody who's ever done anything rock 'n' roll.

Did you ever hear about the rock and roll singer who got 3 or 4 Cadillacs, saying power to the people, dance to the music, wants you to pat him on the back.

Don't lose the wonder in your eyes It's right there when you smile... If we go back, for a while Let me go back, for a while To that magic time

Enlightenment says the world is nothing Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion And nothing is real.

Enlightenment, don't know what it is. It's up to you, the way you think.

Everybody's got their own particular vision which is a personal thing.

For a long time, I couldn't actually deal with playing concerts; it was a totally alien concept to me, 'cause I was used to playing in clubs and dance halls.

Go up to the mountain, go up to the glen, where silence will touch you, and heartbreak will mend.

Have I told you lately that I love you, have I told you lately there's no one above you. Fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness, ease my troubles, that's what you do.

Heavy Connection is just basically about psychic stuff...it's kind of about connections that you're not normally making. It's like a fate number where you're making psychic connections that you're not really aware of but they're there.

I also like to do physical things. I like swimming a lot. I like traveling. Not touring traveling but just plain traveling. I also read a lot. Reading takes up most of my time.

I always record far more than I can use. There's probably twice as much recorded as comes out.

I am about the arrangements and the layers of depth in the music.

I can see more naturalness in basic blues, basic R & B, basic rock 'n' roll.

I didn't know what some of the stuff on Astral Weeks was about until years later.

I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.

I don't have any regrets about the album [ Veedon Fleece ]. But it's the same old story - an album is basically 35 or 40 minutes of what you do. It's 'part' of what you do.

I don't like to condemn people because what that means is that you're only condemning yourself about a part of you that you can't stand.

I don't like to wonder about it-I just like to do it. That's what I mean about the image stuff and all that. There's far too much emphasis being placed on that kind of stuff...the whole emphasis on what does it mean? Everybody has their own particular vision.

I educated myself. To me, school was boring.

I felt kind of bored at the prospect of writing some more of my own songs because I really wasn't saying what I wanted to say.

I find it extremely difficult talking about my songs because there's so many different things that can make a song come together.

I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright.

I had my eyes closed in the dark, I sighed a million sighs, I told a million lies, to myself, to myself.

I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am.

I have some intellectual-type pursuits, like studying philosophy and stuff like that.

I have to accept the fact that I was putting out records that reviewers were going to get an image from.

I haven't really heard much that's impressed me the way it was when I first heard Ray Charles or somebody like that. That was really an impression.

I just can't stand it [ jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't grab me.

I just can't stand jazz/rock. I think it's the worst thing that's come down the river yet.

I just like any music to swing, no matter what it is.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

I just wanted to stop and try to get some perspective. [ A Period of Transition] it was just a matter of wanting to review the whole thing...to try and get some relationship to what I was doing.

I like [George] Benson because I just like it. I like that kind of style. I don't like the broken up kind of style. I don't like where you play for 16 bars and then break it up into what somebody's version of what birds twittering sounds like, or what the sound of the city is, or what New York sounds like.

I like to see people reaching back for the roots and for the reason why. Not intellectually, but just for the gut feeling of what it's all about.

I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me.

I never, ever said that I was a nice guy.

I realized I was growing up or something like that. You have responsibilities...you've got to think about getting your act together. I didn't even know what it had been doing to me. I didn't realize how dangerous it was. People talked in terms of drugs and I used to think in terms of...well in Ireland, everybody drinks. Nobody gives it a second thought. You're Irish number one and you're a drinker number two. That's the first two things about us Irish.

I realized that what I was looking for was doing collaborations with other people - people who can play a ballad, rock, jazz. I was looking for more co-op type things than what I had been doing, which had been completely my own trip.

I shall drive my chariot down your street and cry hey it's me.

I think I opened up an area with Astral Weeks that hit a lot of peoples' nerves. But you can't really say that they're my favorite songs.

I think intellectualization is what's killing most people.

I think that there are quite a few acts which have stayed with the basic feelings and that's good. And I see something of a swing back to that. For example there are quite a few people copying my early stuff now. Like it's become a reference point or something.

I think we're going a bit too fast at the minute. The rate we're going is like we're going over the edge of the hill.