“I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It’s chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.”

I don’t think [Dylan and the Beatles] influenced me a lot. I think it was inevitable; they were so powerful that you couldn’t really escape the influence.

If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you’ve created a special little thing, and that’s what I’m looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.

Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.

Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.

I don’t consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I’m growing.

How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.

Music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

I stepped outside to smoke a J and when I came back to the room, everybody just seemed to move.

There is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime.

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

If you’ll be my body guard, I can be your long lost pal.

Then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right, there must be fifty ways to leave your lover.

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend my life will never end, and flowers never bend with the rainfall.

Who am I to blow against the wind?

Many people are being persuaded that they cannot be considered intelligent or well educated if they insist on the doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Book.

I think what gets you through a small writing project, is just one burst of inspiration.

I’m still happy with the way Einstein’s Dreams came out. That book came out of a single inspiration. I really felt like I was not creating the words, that I was hearing the words.

For a painter, the Mecca of the world for study, for inspiration, and for living is here on this star called Paris.

It makes passable Bath buns. But inspiration from within is like a volcano: It changes the face of the world.

The bible is not a blueprint for every day of your life, it is an inspiration not a blueprint.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: Inspiration from outside one’s self is like the heat in an oven.

Inspiration is not inside of us. Inspiration comes from outside. It comes from our spiritual guides and from different energies that are in the universe.