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" I wasn't perfect, although during the '60s, I may have appeared to be. After all, I was partying away there for awhile. From age 17 to 25, I worked only on the outer man, and I did pretty well, but I needed to go back and work on the inside. "

Donovan

Work

Man

Age

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" I'm a teacher, but I'm really a healer. "

" My music translates again and again to younger generations of players because I broke all the rules, and they can break all the rules now, too. "

" Most people think that I heard Bob Dylan first and got a cap and harmonica. Really, it was Woody Guthrie. He was so influential. "

" With songwriters like me who are prolific, you just write the song and then put it on tape. "

" I was making the music and writing the songs which reflected the emerging consciousness of my generation. "

" My dad would always ask, 'How's the money?' but I was never interested. Millions came and went, stolen by the robbers in the music industry. But as someone said, 'You'll never be poor as long as you can pick up a guitar.' "

" I am so highly skilled that when I pick up a phrase and then pick up my guitar, a form comes out almost immediately - a song - and once I start, I have to finish it. "

Donovan

I Am

Start

" Any nobody from the folk blues world could avoid being influenced by Woody Guthrie, who is actually of Scottish-Irish ancestry. "

" I've exhibited quite a few of my photographs. I expand them digitally till they're very big. It's an art school thing, I suppose. "

" I get plastic nails done in the salon. When I was younger, they were stronger, but now I get my nails built up. Then I can dance over the strings. I say, 'Okay, I need four nails; I'm a guitarist.' Sometimes if I'm in a strange place, the girl says, 'Yeah, all the guys say that.' "

" It's not like me and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr hang out every week, but we keep together in promoting Transcendental Meditation. "

Donovan

Meditation

Together

" It seems to be very clear that each new generation that comes - not only audiences but young bands as well - are very encouraged and enthused and inspired by my work. "

" The songs I write and sing try to say important things with a lightness. "

" I can't help it: when something strikes me, I write it down. "

" I first met Linda Lawrence in March 1965 in the green room of 'Ready Steady Go!,' the British pop TV show. Linda was a friend of one of the co-hosts. She had an art-school vibe, and after a brief conversation, I asked her to dance to a soul record playing. As we jazz danced, I fell in love. "

" The songs I write are about searching, and they're ambiguous - always to be understood in different ways. "

" My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background. "

" What I needed and actually need is a discipline of tradition, which is lacking in our civilization. Discipline of tradition and the ceremony of humbleness. "

" If you have a loved one, you can survive anything. "

" The idea of the mystic solo, meditating away on his own, is only one path of yoga. Very early on, I chose the path of Life. One path is austerity and isolation, the other is Life. But they both lead to the same place. "

" When I was a boy, I had a grand, big tape recorder, and I made late-night radio shows with glasses of water and funny voices. I just loved radio plays. "

" I meditate every day and do some hatha yoga every day. "

" Coming from art school, I had a great sense of style - as did The Beatles and the Stones - and I enjoyed projecting that. Image, attitude, great music and great lyrics - that was the '60s. "

" In my time, we didn't know songs could last. All we ever thought of was next Tuesday. You never imagined a future. "

" I've experimented with so many different sounds, it's difficult to say what the Donovan sound really is, but it's essentially my voice and guitars. "

" 'Sunshine Superman' was a pioneering work that for the first time presented a fusion of Celtic, jazz, folk, rock, and Indian music as well as poetry. "

" I already had top 10 records before 'Sunshine Superman,' with 'Catch the Wind' and 'Colors,' but this was a real breakthrough for me. It was a consciousness change for songwriting, as people are now saying I initiated the psychedelic revolution with this album, 'Sunshine Superman.' "

Donovan

Sunshine

Revolution

" Sometimes the songs just come to me. I don't sit down to write like you'd sit down to make a pair of boots. "

Donovan

Down

You

" I never considered myself an entertainer. I always felt I had to be connected to something meaningful, or it wasn't worth doing. "

" I found in Rick Rubin a kindred soul. When I visited his home and looked in his library, I saw he was reading the very same New Age books I had picked up the month before. "