I tended to emphasize the secular, the casual, the colloquial, the vernacular against the sacred.

There are editing procedures for talks just as there are editing procedures in jazz improvisation.

My way of thinking is very particular and concrete. It doesn't follow a continuous path.

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

You pay your money, you take your choice. I get the audience my language attracts and I lose the ones it repels.

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.

The self is an oral society in which the present is constantly running a dialogue with the past and the future inside of one skin.