It’s a pity if someone… has to console himself for the wreck of his days with the notion that somehow his voice, his work embodies the deepest, most obscure, freshest, rawest oyster of reality in the unfathomable refrigerator of the heart’s ocean, but I am such a one, and there you have it.

Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chords when I knew five!

The dreamers ride against the men of action. Oh see the men of action falling back.

Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else." Then let's be quiet together.

If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.

I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.

I will not be held like a drunkard / under the cold tap of facts