42 Quotes by Donald Fagen

The milk of the sacred cows has a way of turning sour.

It’s great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it’s wonderful to think that we’ve turned a few people on to jazz over the years.

I started a lyric for this song “Godwhacker,” which Walter and I completed and recorded for a Steely Dan CD. It’s about an elite squad of assassins whose sole assignment is to find a way into heaven and take out God. If the Deity actually existed, what sane person wouldn’t consider this to be justifiable homicide?

I’m starting to get older, and began to think about mortality a little more. My mother died in 2003 and that was a big shock. When your parents start to die off, that’s going to be a revelation. So for me, this album – although it might sound quite cheery – is really talking about death.

One of the Count’s most quoted sentences is “The map is not the territory.” In other words, don’t confuse the word with the object, the description with the thing itself.

I tried to grow up. Honest. Didn’t quite happen. I guess I’m someone for whom youth still seems more real than the present, or the half century in between. And why not? I’m deeply underwhelmed by most contemporary art, literature, music, films, TV, the heinous little phones, money talk, real estate talk, all that stuff. The Internet, which at first seemed so fascinating, appears to be evolving into something even worse than TV, but we’ll see.

My style is a little quirky. I can’t play as fast as most professional jazz players.

People are usually afraid to say what’s on their mind.

I don’t think you can escape the environment we live in now.