People talk about Frank Sinatra all the time - and they should talk about Frank - but he had the greatest arrangers. They worked for him in a different kind of way than they worked for other people. They gave him arrangements that are just sublime on every level. And he, of course, could match that because he had this ability to get inside of the song in a sort of a conversational way. Frank sang to you, not at you, like so many pop singers today. Even singers of standards.

Now all the criminals in their suits and ties are free to drink martinis and watch the sunrise

I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.

There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.

I stopped smoking. When I stopped smoking, my voice changed... so drastically, I couldn't believe it myself.

What good are fans? You can't eat applause for breakfast. You can't sleep with it.

Popular music had never had lyrical sophistication of this type [like Bob Dylan]; wit, to be sure, but "Darkness at the break of noon/Shadows even the silver spoon/The handmade blade, the child's balloon/Eclipses both the sun and moon/To understand you know too soon/ There is no sense in trying"? No.