“What started as a whisper Slowly turned into a scream Searching for an answer Where the question is unseen I don’t know where you came from And I don’t know where you’ve gone Old friends become old strangers Between the darkness and the dawn”

It’s not easy for a mother and son to sing a duet. You can’t just sing about anything.

My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center.

Every single time I step into the studio, I say, ‘Can I still do this? Do I still have it? Have I ever had it?’ I suppose there’s a good amount of self-loathing that goes into any form of artisanship.

If I fall, I fall. I’ll rise up like anybody else.

You can kill a lot of time if you really want to put your mind to it Or leave it all behind and never really have to go through it

Let us burn one from end to end, and pass it over to me my friend.

Don’t be discouraged by writer’s block. Writer’s block just means you need to listen to other music.

Don’t let what you have to heal from blind you to how much there is to heal for.

I can change the world With my own two hands Make a better place With my own two hands Make a kinder place.

The woman in you is the worry in me.

As long as the songs are strong, I think you can express yourself in any style and have it be soulful and have it be your own voice.

I refuse to age disgracefully in rock ‘n’ roll.

I’m not going to do the Ben Harper house record or the Ben Harper drum ‘n’ bass record.

Make sure the fortune that you seek is the fortune that you need.

It just takes a pebble to bring down a good man.

The advice I have for new artists is this – write great songs and play them live as often as possible. Get residencies all over town and crush it.

I was always amazed at how beautiful the light was. At different times of the day the landscape becomes a different place. Dawn and dusk, it’s a different place.

The dawn of knowledge is usually the false dawn.

Why is it that the finish line always tends to appear just after the point at which we most want to give up? is it the universe’s way of reserving the best for those who can give the most? What I do know, from nature, is that the dawn only appears after the darkest hour.

The single sculler, alone on the river at dawn, or spotlighted in his lane during a race, is th emost romantic, the most quixotic figure in all rowing.

Dawn has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision.

Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction.

The past is the beginning of the beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.

The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless; love is eternal.