Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.

I've often said if I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

It's inappropriate for an elderly chap to register, you know, authentically, his feelings, you know, because they really can be interpreted. So you have to get quite covert as you get older. Or you have to find some avuncular way, you know, of responding.

Someone gave me wishes and I wished for an embrace.

I almost went to bed without remembering the four white violets I put in the button-hole of your green sweater and how i kissed you then and you kissed me shy as though I’d never been your lover

I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.

even damnation is poisoned with rainbows.