Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn child.

By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul.

I stayed away from mathematics not so much because I knew it would be hard work as because of the amount of time I knew it would take, hours spent in a field where I was not a natural.

My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself.

And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers. Go running back to dust and mist.

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men. They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with them. And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along the Desplaines river and I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion.

What else have I done nearly all my life than go hungry and go on singing?