I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

I don't take good pictures 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves.

Every baby is born beautiful. It's what we project on them that makes them ugly.

It should not be Illiers-Combray that we visit: a genuine homage to Proust would be to look at our world through his eyes, not look at his world through our eyes.

As often happens during a war, some parts of the country prospered, notwithstanding the constant loss.

When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted.

I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room - and God damn it - died in a hotel room.

I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.

And even though I'm standing in the middle of the biggest crowd I've ever seen in my life, I suddenly feel very alone.

People keep asking me if I'll marry again. It's as if after you've had one car crash you want another.

The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantelpiece forever.