“I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am.”
Artemus Ward, His Travels http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/eafbin2/toccer-eaf?id=Weaf483&tag=public&data=/www/data/eaf2/private/texts&part=0, Lecture (1865).
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Artemus Ward 24
American writer 1834–1867Related quotes
“Maybe it's maudlin, but so am I. I get chills every time I sing it, even when sober.”
Letter to Maxwell Perkins (21 October 1946); p. 80
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Context: Also by the way, I have found a title for this book. From Here to Eternity. Taken from the "Whiffenpoof" song, of Yale drinking fame. It goes: "We are little black sheep who have gone astray, baa... baa... baa. Gentlemen songsters out on a spree, damned from here to eternity. God have mercy on such as we. Baa, etc." Maybe it's maudlin, but so am I. I get chills every time I sing it, even when sober.

“I would rather be dead than singing Satisfaction when I am 45.”

You think I have a merry heart, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "I can’t sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am", Artemus Ward, Lecture.

“The essential thing is to WANT to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”
Source: Tropic of Cancer
“I am a farmer singing at the plow”
Man with a Bull-Tongue Plow, first line of the poem (1934)

The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)

“I am yours. If you feed me garbage,
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.”
"Pig Song" http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=21982
Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976)