When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.

- Van Morrison

I deliberately try not to cater for the commercial market, so I can't see myself in competition, you know, with second or third generation rock stars.

- Van Morrison

If you're a pop singer, you don't need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.

- Van Morrison

You've got to separate the singer and the songs.

- Van Morrison

You learn to read the audiences after a while, and there are all different kinds of gigs.

- Van Morrison

My records do not require a lot of thought of 'What is this?' and 'What is that?' That would be too contrived for me.

- Van Morrison

For a long time, I couldn't actually deal with playing concerts; it was a totally alien concept to me, 'cause I was used to playing in clubs and dance halls.

- Van Morrison

I'm not a rock singer and I don't want to be a rock singer. I'm not interested. It doesn't seem to get across.

- Van Morrison

As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

- Van Morrison

I think when you get past your second album, it all becomes something of a routine. So you have to struggle against that, find a way of making what you do sound fresh and new each time.

- Van Morrison

A lot of people who were writing when I came through originally as a singer-songwriter have disappeared.

- Van Morrison

The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

- Van Morrison

I'd love to live in Ireland but I'd like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don't understand - I lived there before I was famous.

- Van Morrison

I don't think nostalgia has to be negative.

- Van Morrison

I don't feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That's what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.

- Van Morrison

I always record far more than I can use. There's probably twice as much recorded as comes out.

- Van Morrison

Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.

- Van Morrison

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

- Van Morrison

There's always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That's what life is made of. I don't know anything else. If there is, tell me about it.

- Van Morrison

The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

- Van Morrison