“It was like she was cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody to take it out on. However, just the same she had that feeling. Cheated.”

Comparing the Brooklyn that I know with Manhattan is like comparing a comfortable and complacent duenna to her more brilliant and neurotic sister.

Death is the great gamer with a sleeve of tricks.

In his face there came to be a brooding peace that is seen most often in the faces of the very sorrowful or the very wise. But still he wandered through the streets of the town, always silent and alone.

Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss.

For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and valor. Of the endless fluid passage of the humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who – one word- love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him, he felt a warning, a shaft of terror.

This was her, Mick Kelly, walking in the daytime and by herself at night. In the hot sun and in the dark with all the plans and feelings.

The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved.

The writer is by nature a dreamer – a conscious dreamer.

I want – I want – I want – was all that she could think about – but just what this real want was she did not know.

But no value has been put on human life; it is given to us free and taken without being paid for. What is it worth?

All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.

Can you wonder it is so miserable? Do you know how men should love? A tree. A rock. A cloud.

I was like a cat always climbing the wrong tree.

The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person.

Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today.

The xenophobic individual can only reject and destroy, as the xenophobic nation inevitably makes war.

Like the air we breathe or like the passage of time, is central to our existence as intelligent beings.

Just try to do music that you like and you are proud of and not just whatever you think it’s going to take to get you on the radio.

The very best people are like that. They don’t entangle you like flypaper.

Eternally noble, historically fair; Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat. Why can’t a woman be like that?

But often it’s a mechanical transformation, which isn’t as interesting, and you’ve got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

You see what happens today. Women act like men and want to be treated like women.

I always try to make the music that I like and think my fans will like.

Go among the people. Don’t assume you know what church looks like.