Quote collection
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"A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love."
"It's been a long time since I've stood on a stage in London. Was about 14 or 15 years ago, I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through."
"A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh."
"I've often said if I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often."
"You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah"
"My page was too white My ink was too thin The day wouldn't write What the night pencilled in."
"I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you"
"My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone."
"May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye."
"She was made of flesh and eyelashes."
"Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song."
"Maybe there's a God above, As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight, It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah."
"We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what?"
"As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty."
"People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music."
"Seriousness is not Calvinistic, it's not a renunciation, it's the very opposite of that."
"Garages, barns and attics are always older than the buildings to which they are attached."
"You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes one kind."
"I am not the one who loves - It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, you forbid delivery..."
"There are always meaningful songs for somebody. People are doing their courting, people are finding their wives, people are making babies, people are washing their dishes, people are getting through the day, with songs that we may find insignificant. But their significance is affirmed by others. There’s always someone affirming the significance of a song by taking a woman into his arms or by getting through the night. That’s what dignifies the song. Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song."