Funny how being a grown-up didn’t make you any less glad to have a mom on the scene. Whether it was your own or someone else’s mother, it was like having the cavalry arrive.

Singers provide all the proof that we have souls.

Art corrupts. Absolute art corrupts absolutely. Please corrupt me absolutely.

I studied poetry in college and for a year in an MFA program. As time went on, my poems got more and more complicated. What I was really trying to do was tell stories.

I inherited my father's insatiable desire to meet all the beautiful girls in the world.

I have the problems of, I must confess, old age.

Lord knows I've paid my dues getting through, tangled up in blue.

I have always thought of Christmas time... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.

When I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful.

The golden rule in the arts, as far as I am concerned, is that all rules are meant to be broken.

I've come to know that what we want in life is the greatest indication of who we really are (p. 331).