Anger and jealousy's all that he sells us, he's content when you're under his thumb. Madmen oppose him, but your kindness throws him, to survive it you play deaf and dumb.

You don't write a song to sit there on a page. You write it to sing it.

There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun, and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy and God I know I'm one.

I can picture the color of the song, or the shape of it, or who it is that I'm trying to appeal to, in the song, and what I'm trying to, almost, reinforce my feelings for. And I know that sounds sort of vague and abstract, but I've got a handle on it when I'm doing it.

Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening. Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing. Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter.

Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.

Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon -but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx -the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?