Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.

It's hard to be serious about so many things. [Look at the whole emphasis] on the charts, if you're a songwriter.

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

Don't dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.

I’ve seen the nations rise and fall. I’ve heard their stories, heard them all, but love’s the only engine of survival.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.