Suzanne had a room on a waterfront street in the port of Montreal. Everything happened just as it was put down. She was the wife of a man I knew. Her hospitality was immaculate. Some months later I sang it for Judy Collins over the telephone. The publishing rights were lost in New York City, but it is probably appropriate that I don't own this song. Just the other day I heard some people singing it on a ship in the Caspian Sea.

I don't have any spiritual strategy.

Your heart opens and of course you're completely panicked because you're used to guarding this organ with your life.

When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That's about all you can do.

Seriousness is not Calvinistic, it's not a renunciation, it's the very opposite of that.

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep.

Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song.