“And, of course, people are interested only in themselves. If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen.”

Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don’t talk back.

People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

All great and precious things are lonely.

Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

Only through immitation do we develop toward originality.

To be alive at all is to have scars.

Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.

All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.

I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.

Time is the only critic without ambition.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.

Being around people like Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, Dionne Warwick and Roberta Flack, all these greats, I was taught to listen and observe.

50 percent of the people I perform for have come to scream at me and the other 50 percent have come to listen to the music.

I don’t really listen to rap; I just like to rap.

It’s not until recently that I could even imagine myself as an adult. But these kids today, they look at me like I’m Neil Young. Nirvana is the band their parents listen to.

I waited, quietly listened, cupped my ear to your mouth, but silence echoed grievously in the absence of sound. It was only warm breath and then emptiness.

Listening only to my instincts, I discovered superb things.

I ain’t never been the type of person out at the movies and holding hands and riding around listening to R. Kelly.

No. No. I don’t listen to anyone except my … inner child anyway. If someone had said to me, Amy, lose a stone which they wouldn’t – I don’t think I would have listened anyway.