You're going to react to a painting in a way that the painting demands you react.

Elvis transcends his talent to the point of dispensing with it altogether.

No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes.

Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel in contemporary writing... Music that mines the deep veins of fatalism in the Appalachian voice

I learned that when something just has to be said to move the discussion along, or broaden it or deepen it, if I can just keep my mouth shut for five minutes a student will say it. So for me a lot of teaching is about keeping my mouth shut.

Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits.

I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.