Richard Thompson Quotes

“To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.”

— Richard Thompson

“Life is just as deadly as it looks, but fiction is more forgiving.”

— Richard Thompson

Did the tea-time of your soul
Make you long for wilder days
Did you never let Jack Kerouac
Wash over you in waves?

— Richard Thompson

I'm a fool with a size one head/
I'll change this heart of mine/
This time, this time

— Richard Thompson

“I think the reason kids get into drugs and smoking is they don't have anything to do.”

— Richard Thompson

I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.

— Richard Thompson

The best thing you've got going for you is individuality.

— Richard Thompson

“Amplifying acoustic instruments more than a little is really cheating, and everything becomes a compromise.”

— Richard Thompson

“It's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something.”

— Richard Thompson

“I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.”

— Richard Thompson

“When you stand up acoustic in front of an audience, you really are a man without any clothes on. And that can be fun - it depends how much of an exhibitionist you are, I suppose. I quite enjoy it.”

— Richard Thompson

“But music can save your life sometimes. It probably saved me from working in a bank or something. That's a kind of salvation right there.”

— Richard Thompson

I like the idea of playing in unison with yourself.

— Richard Thompson

“I try to make songs visual and tactile to kind of put you into the action.”

— Richard Thompson

“I'm always making a conscious effort to be viable and accessible.”

— Richard Thompson

“I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing.”

— Richard Thompson

“People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences.”

— Richard Thompson

“There's a part of me that wishes I'd never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there's so much mileage in that. But it's too late to stop now.”

— Richard Thompson

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

— Richard Thompson

“All audiences should be slightly off balance.”

— Richard Thompson

“I have to remind myself not to set boundaries.”

— Richard Thompson

“I just like to entertain myself by sitting down and writing songs.”

— Richard Thompson

“It's amazing what some people read into songs.”

— Richard Thompson

“The thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records.”

— Richard Thompson

Well, first of all it's entertainment. That stops us becoming too pretentious or thinking we're great artists.

— Richard Thompson

What I wanted to hear didn't exist, so it was necessary for me to go out and create it.

— Richard Thompson

“You want the audience to be uncomfortable.”

— Richard Thompson

As the writer, you're always a presence in the song. If you get close to what human beings are like, you're writing about common experience. We all do much the same things, so if you nail somebody, then you've also nailed yourself.

— Richard Thompson

“Every day I'll wear your memory like a favorite shirt upon my back”

— Richard Thompson

“I think it's absolutely possible to write a song and go somewhere where no one's been before, uncharted territory. In terms of content, I see limitations where there should be none. I know there are things I wouldn't write about, but that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to make a song out of anything, out of any situation.”

— Richard Thompson

“Sitting around home I mostly play acoustic. I've got seven or eight guitars of various sorts, including a baritone. Sometimes at home, because a guitar is just lying around, that's the guitar I pick up rather than actually choosing something. I try to plan ahead for my laziness by leaving interesting things scattered about. If I leave a baritone guitar lying around, that's the one I'll pick up, and I'll start writing baritoney things.”

— Richard Thompson

“I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape and a better feeling. You evolve into and out of things, and go through stages, but, ultimately, you do improve.”

— Richard Thompson

“There is in fact a controversy over Darwin's theory. Clearly both theories have religious implications. But this is not about God.”

— Richard Thompson

“There are only three white blues singers
Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them.”

— Richard Thompson

To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm

— Richard Thompson

They came in the thousands from the whole human race to pay their respects at his last resting place.

— Richard Thompson