They all trying to say something with music that you can't say with plain talk. There ain't really no words for love or pain. And the way I see it, only fools go around trying to talk their love or talk their pain. So the smart people make music and you can kinda hear about it without them saying anything.

You can't teach talent. You can't put in what God left out - but you can teach confidence.

One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work.

Writers are voracious readers. Once I unlocked the mystery of the alphabet that led to words, a multitude of words connecting me to the world, there was no stopping me. Everything was fair game, from Louisa May Alcott to my older cousin's True Romance Magazines, from Lewis Carroll to the backs of cereal boxes. All of this fed me, but it took certain books to make me grow. I don't want to work without a sense of drama, without passion, or without both eyes open to the world around me.

A myth is more powerful - and more lasting - than reality.

Self-consciousness is really a form of egotism.

Words themselves are innocuous; it is the consensus that gives them true power.