Well, there is something beautiful about ruins. I mean, in one sense it's not that different from going to Rome and looking at the Forum. But it's changing. It truly is. I'm optimistic but skeptical.

And all of the big shots of the car industry are there, strutting their stuff. And that year, they're feeling especially good because cars were selling more than ever before.

I want to write for history, not for the moment.

My basic philosophy is that no human being is a saint.

I said that I'm only there to write the truth, I'm not going to cover anything up, but I'll put everything in context and get as close to the truth of this person as I can.

It is?classic Bill Clinton, sincere and deceptive at the same time, requiring a careful reading between the lines.

And then the industry itself was so cocky about what they were doing that they weren't seeing what was coming on the horizon with Japan and Germany and other places that were building smaller cars.

Well, there were several things. One was that the industry itself built in Detroit was abandoning the city - taking factories elsewhere, the corporate headquarters elsewhere.

Originally, John Kennedy was going to come speak, and then Lyndon Johnson. Because it was October of '62, neither made it because of the Cuban missile crisis.

It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vulnerable.

Try not to become a copy of someone else. Not even a perfect copy. Originals are always honored over duplicates.

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

I had always intended to make a living out of playing blues. But I never admitted it to myself. I don't suppose I could have given a logical reason for it ever becoming possible to do so.

I'm a gentleman and I was always taught it's rude, to talk about a woman's age or weight unless you are breaking up with her.

The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.

I went to the Rudolf Steiner School in New York, and you're not allowed to watch TV.

People forget that when you’re 16, you’re probably more serious than you’ll ever be again. You think seriously about the big questions.

Whoever best serves the song is going to be served by the song

The key to my collections is sensuality.

As in all his subsequent dealings with France, Ho Chi Minh's demands were a model of modesty.