I've been given a gift [musical talent] - don't misuse it. I spent a lot of time just wasting that talent, not treasuring it, not valuing it, not respecting it, just taking it for granted. That was a hard lesson to learn. It doesn't come for free. Don't do that. Treasure it, respect it, treat it as a responsibility that you've been given, and enjoy the hell out of it.

Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow.

You tend to write as you get older about family love more than you write about romantic love or ooh baby. ... The stuff that you want to celebrate about humanity has always been there and probably always will be.

Sometimes the entire thing comes out in one burst. Sometimes you hack away at a thing for years before you get something that satisfies you.

There has never been a communism that worked. They were all dictatorships or oligarchies, every single one.

My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.

All wars would end immediately if the various chiefs of state dropped a little LSD.