“No matter how accomplished or how many awards you get, you’re always still thinking there’s somebody out there who’s better than you.”

I don’t work at being ordinary.

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

My arrest was on every bloody TV set. The other prisoners all knew who I was and asked me to sing.

One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.

In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

I have not practiced how to be a singer without an instrument.

Being in the audience actually looks like quite a lot of fun.

Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, Tomorrow I’ll miss you.

It’s also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that’s your pool of resources.

I believe that in the future meditation could be as commonplace in schools and society as eco-awareness is now. It interests me that an ancient cure may be the solution to a modern problem.

What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything, I write a song.

A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it’s all you’ve got, unless you’re brilliant and can write totally in the now.

The good Lord made this world and everything that’s in it. The way I see it, baby, you got to love it to the limit.

I still believe that love is all you need. I don’t know a better message than that.

It’s a lifelong gift, something you can call on at any time.

A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.

I was at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards one year – they called me up when somebody canceled two days before the thing, and asked me to present some awards.

Do awards change careers? Well, I haven’t heard of many stories where that’s the case. It’s a fun excuse to meet colleagues and celebrate people who’ve done well that year in certain people’s eyes, and it’s nothing more than that.

One thing is that I wasn’t getting booked that well, and they had control over who got the awards, they had control over who sold.

Awards don’t really mean much.

You know, the Oscar I was awarded for The Untouchables is a wonderful thing, but I can honestly say that I’d rather have won the U.S. Open Golf Tournament.

Nowadays, what an award gives is a sense of solidarity with the poetry guild, as it were: sustenance coming from the assent of your peers on the judging panel.

I didn’t get a lot of awards as a player. But they did have a Bob Uecker Day Off for me once in Philly.

I learned that writing is the consolation prize you are given when you don’t get the thing you want the most.