The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind.

The things that I loved about Bob's [Dylan] music - and I describe him in the book as the father of my country, which he really is - were things that just didn't fit when I went to do my job. You know, I'd come out of a somewhat different circumstance and shoes - the clothes just didn't fit.

All the music I loved as a child, people thought it was junk. People were unaware of the subtext in so many of those records but if you were a kid you were just completely tuned in, even though you didn't always say - you wouldn't dare say it was beautiful.

When I got into "Anna Karenina" and "Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment," that was the stuff that - that had a big effect on me, because it was so psychological.

You can hide beneath the covers and study your pain, make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain. Waste your summer praying in vain, for a savior to rise from these streets.

I was real good at music and real bad at everything else.

In a restless heart the seed of betrayal lay.