I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.

You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.

I don't know if any genuine meaningful change could ever result from a song. It's kind of like throwing peanuts at a gorilla.

If you're a writer you know that the stories don't come to you, you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

Songs really are like a form of time travel because they really have moved forward in a bubble. Everyone who's connected with it, the studio's gone, the musicians are gone, and the only thing that's left is this recording which was only about a three-minute period maybe 70 years ago.

Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that "Nova" in Spanish translates to "no go." Not the best name for a car... anywhere "no va."

The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.