What has changed for me is that I now have a huge family [Lightfoot has four children, from his first two marriages] - the result of my living.

I took the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from a folk singer called Bonnie Dobson. I knew her and she had a record with that track on it.

When love is true there is no truer occupation.

I try to write songs. At our concerts, we take the cream of the crop from my back catalogue and I don't know if I could write something now that would replace any of that. We don't lose any of the standards. We have lots of songs in rotation.

If I could read your mind, what a tale your thoughts could tell. Just like a paperback novel, the kind that drugstores sell.

Of course I knew The Band's Canadian keyboard player, the late Richard Manuel, but I didn't play that night because I was there as a guest with my record executives. People ask, "why didn't you play?" If I had known I was going to be playing then I would have been prepared for it.

Whitecaps in profusion all around me, but somehow in your eyes I found the strength to sail upon that raging sea.