Quote collection
282 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Chevrolet was puzzled when they discovered that their sales for the Chevy Nova were off the charts everywhere but in Latin America. They finally realized that "Nova" in Spanish translates to "no go." Not the best name for a car... anywhere "no va.""
"Cross my wooden leg, swear on my glass eye."
"You want soldiers who, when they get to a river after a long march, don't start rooting for their canteen in their pack, but just dive right in."
"Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane."
"Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete."
"The big print giveth and the small print taketh away."
"The beginning of it starts at the end"
"When you're writing‚ you're conjuring. It's a ritual‚ and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room."
"The Universe is making music all the time."
"I like vocal word stuff. But I don't always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It's more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It's closest to the choreography of a bee. You're freer."
"If I want to walk out in the desert and heat up a can of beans on a fire, I still can. In those movies like Gattaca or whatever, the space age stuff is always all there is. But in the world there is never just one way of living. It's more like a big junkyard. Put it this way: I'm not afraid I'm going to end up on a space station in aluminium-foil underwear."
"Now it's closing time/the music's fading out."
"I have an audio stigmatism whereby I hear things wrong - I have audio illusions."
"I don't go to church on Sunday, don't get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way"
"the earth is not my home, I'm just passing by"
"You know what I really love? The CD players in a car. How when you put the CD right up by the slot, it actually takes it out of your hand, like it's hungry. It pulls it in, and you feel like it wants more silver discs."
"Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking the residue of all that material you absorbed over time."
"Well you wave your hand and they scatter like crows They have nothing that will ever capture your heart They're just thorns without the rose Be careful of them in the dark Oh, if I was the one you chose to be your only one Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now Will I see you tonight on a downtown train Every night it's just the same, you leave me lonely now"
"The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures."
"I didn't really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was looking for my own voice, as a writer, y'know? And a world I could call my own."