Sometimes the entire thing comes out in one burst. Sometimes you hack away at a thing for years before you get something that satisfies you.
The easiest way to get laid by a girl, or get rid of her, is to write a song about her.
CSNY is a little like putting seven pounds of stuff in a three pound bag.
I produced her first album, and I was breaking up with her at the time. That was not comfortable. Falling in love with Joni Mitchell is a bit like falling into a cement mixer!
The stupid thing I incorrectly believed for a long time is that I believed for a long time that some politicians could sometimes tell the truth.
Now record companies are run by lawyers and accountants. The shift from the one to the other was definitely related to when the takes started to get big.
Neil Young played Helpless, and by the time he finished, we were asking him if we could join his band.
Jimi Hendrix could play better than our best guys and he did it while he was dancing while being completely outrageous.
When did I decide to go into business? Well, it wasn’t a business, when I decided. It was simply a need to sing.
I do like to smoke pot. I think it’s good.
My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.
I can’t legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.
Sailing became one of the mainstreams of my life. I suppose my father was an influence. I remember seeing a photo of him at home sailing a big boat to Bermuda in his 20s. I still have it.
I think ideas are still the most powerful things on the planet, and music is a great way to transmit them.
While I was an addict, I didn’t write anything. I didn’t have the attention span or the will.
Describing Woodstock as the “big bang,” I think that’s a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn’t how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played.
I don’t like greed, I don’t like ignorance. I really don’t like anger. But I love love.
All wars would end immediately if the various chiefs of state dropped a little LSD.
I think music is a lifting force, I think love is the lifting force in the human condition. I think you see someone loving on their child, and it moves you, and you can’t help it.
I want to go to Africa and find a really great hotel with good food right above a water hole where I can sit, have breakfast, and just watch the elephants play in the water.
The movie I’ve seen the most times, boy, that’s a tough one. It would have to be a toss-up between Apocalypse Now and the first Star Wars. I think the first Star Wars.