Carly Simon

You know when you take the paint off an old canvas and you discover that something's been painted underneath it? That's what I feel like - that part of the old is coming through the new.

Sometimes my boyfriend would write the lyrics and I would write the melody, and other times I would start from scratch. Or sometimes I would take a local poem and put that to music.

One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.

You usually can't tell what's inspiring until you look back on it.

I've gone through the village of my songwriting and my artistry, and I've gone through lots of different phases, including one where it has been very quiet and abandoned me for a few years.

No, because I've never really changed my style that much.

No, because I was always nervous about being onstage.

It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.

I'm still more comfortable with standards than with my own songs.

I remember being onstage once when I didn't have fear: I got so scared I didn't have fear that it brought on an anxiety attack.

Do you know how many concerts I've done in my whole life, in more than 35 years of performing? Sixty-four.

Being in this business for as long as I've been in it, it's sort of like living in a town or a city before the war and then after the war and then during the reconstruction and then during the time that it sprawls out to the malls.