“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.”

You want to be a writer, don’t know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.

The phrasing didn’t work as well.

Believing I had supernatural powers, I slammed into a brick wall.

Artie is a singer, and I’m a writer and player and a singer. We didn’t work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

Losing love is like a window in your heart.

Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan, you don’t need to be coy, Roy, just get yourself free. Hop on the bus, Gus, you don’t need to discuss much, just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free.

And she said ‘Losing love is like a window in your heart, Everybody sees you’re blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.’

Don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard.

She said a good day ain’t got no rain She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed And I think of things that might have been.

We had many more points of agreement than we had points of difference, but we did differ, and the bigger we got, the more insistent we got that each one of us should have his way.

Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?

Someone could walk into this room and say your life is on fire.

Life I love you, all is groovy.

It was the year of the Beatles, it was the year of the Stones, it was 1964.

All God requires from us is to enjoy life and love. That’s the whole point.

No one dare disturb the sound of silence.

You can’t live in this world but there’s nowhere else to go.

I’m so despondent about everything. Everything I try goes totally wrong. There’s no escape from this hole here. I feel drained. So far, I still haven’t found a real purpose in life. Sometimes, I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing to get up for.

The tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.

In estimating the adversities of life, we would seldom have much reason to complain of the evils we suffer, did we understand the dangers we daily escape.

Through reading, I escaped the bad parts of my life in the South Bronx. And, through books, I got to travel the world and the universe. It, to me, was a passport out of my childhood and it remains a way – through the power of words – to change the world.

If you’ve made your own hell, then only you have the power to escape it.

This silent call you make, A silence so loud I fear the world knows it’s meaning If you fill every corner of a room Where can I look? If I close my eyes the silence becomes louder! There is no escape from you The only way out is in

My first plan of escape having failed, I now determined upon another.