“Maybe a good goal would be to just at least always try to create something good. Like something that is connected to love in some way. Like the [musical] equivalent ofyou can make a decision to be ...”

“I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilightNo I was all horns and thorns sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright.”

“The thing that I was experiencing and dwelling on the entire time is that there are so many things that are not OK and that will never be OK again. But theres also so many things that are OK and go...”

“In the sinking sand,where weve come to rest,have I had a hand in your loneliness?”

“I wasn't interested in writing music that wasn't beautiful for me to listen to.”

“In the sinking sand,where we’ve come to rest,have I had a hand in your loneliness?”

“We prefer to imagine brutal wars and atrocities as events that "just happen" every now and then, much like tornadoes or lightning strikes; this metaphor suggests that we can't generalize from them,...”

“The people of Hiroshima went to work at once to restore human society in the aftermath of the great atomic flood. They were concerned to salvage their own lives, but in the process they also salvag...”

“Along with individual responsibility goes some societal responsibility to enable young people and their parents to do what they need to do. Otherwise, what is a society?”

“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”

“You can write nothing of value unless you give yourself wholly to the the theme -- and when you so give yourself -- you lose appetite ans sleep -- it cannot be helped --”

“If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.”