Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth?

I am suspicious of guilt in myself and in other people; it is usually a way of not thinking, or of announcing one's own fine sensibilities the better to be rid of them fast.

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.

We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell on them.

The judgment of music, like the inspiration for it, must come slow and measured, if it comes with truth.

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.