Van Morrison

"People think I'm eccentric, cranky. If I'm eccentric because I've never been into mainstream things, then I am eccentric."

"Where I feel this has cost me is in the personality situation, where you're expected to be a personality. You not only have to write and record, but you have to go out and sell it. Well, I'm not a sal…"

"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."

"When I was fifteen, I became a professional musician. I got involved with people and did certain things which led me to start making records and touring. And leaving Belfast and going to London and Am…"

"The dynamo of your smile caressed a barefoot virgin child to wander."

"There is one thing I don't understand about Astral Weeks. Of all the records I have ever made that one is definitely not rock. You could throw that record at the wall, take it to music colleges, analy…"

"I don't think I will ever mellow out. I think if you mellow out, you get eaten up. You become like a commodity. So I don't think I will mellow out. It is not in my blood."

"The people I was listening to never sold a lot of records. John Lee Hooker was never on the charts, so I was never in it from a commercial point of view. Other people expected things from my records, …"