He gambled all his life, he's got 27 children, yet he's never had a wife.

[In 1951] we were also told that the Russians could be parachuting from planes over our town at any time. These were the same Russians that my uncles had fought alongside only a few years earlier. Now they had become monsters who were coming to slit our throats and incinerate us. It seemed peculiar. Living under a cloud of fear like this robs a child of his spirit. It's one thing to be afraid when someone's holding a shotgun on you, but it's another thing to be afraid of something that's just not quite real.

You have to look at every one of your songs and be able to identify with them in a meaningful way. You can hardly sing your songs unless you're in them. If you want to fake it, go ahead. Fake it if you want. But I'm not that kind of singer.

Some times I think this whole world Is one big prison yeard Some of us are prisoners The rest of us are guards

I feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet, putting her in a wheel-barrow and wheeling her down the street.

Satan will give you a little taste, then he'll move in with rapid speed.

Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them.