When it comes to writing, clarity trumps all rules.

Music is love, love is music, music is life, and I love my life. Thank you and good night.

And when no hope was left inside on that starry, starry night, you took your life as lovers often do. But I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to.

In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful.

Starry, starry night, flaming flowers that brightly blaze, swirling clouds in violet haze reflect Vincent's eyes of china blue.

But people who really know me, know that I am not a bad boy at heart I am a big teddy bear.

It is pretty tough for a goalie when you look at it. You're always the last line of defense. If you let a goal in, you can't go to the bench and hide between the guys or anything

Do you believe in rock 'n roll? Can music save your mortal soul?

Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.

I can't stress how much my daughter is an inspiration to stay sober. When I come home and she opens those big blue eyes at me, it's the most amazing feeling I could ever feel.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.

I’m an idiot for thinking that one performance would change anything.Maybe I should stop writing songs and start writing fiction.

You desire the end but close your eyes to the means. You want the garden to be beautiful, provided that the smell of manure is kept well away from your fastidious nose.

Sometimes we owe a friend to the lucky circumstance that we give him no cause for envy.

The man is the first weapon of battle. Let us study the soldier, for it is he who brings reality to it.

Ebola has arrived in New York City. And I say, 'if it can make it there...it can make it anywhere!'

I've always said there are four words that every child in the world knows, and those are, "Tell me a story,." Even the people who wrote the Bible knew that. They told stories, like the story of Noah.

If you do something that's really original, you discover why everybody else does it the other way, usually. There's a reason cliches exist, 'cause they work.

We all have to recognise - no matter how great our strength - that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please.

I learned more at The Second City than I did at Yale for all that high tuition.