“Back then, I was still just a fan of music. And to be a fan of music also meant to be a fan of cities, of places. Regionalismand the creative scenes thereinplayed an important role in the identific...”

“I could turn up the volume on their songs and that loudness matched all my panic and fear, anger and emotions that seemed up until that point to be uncontrollable, even amorphous.”

“Music felt married to place, and the notion of "somewhere" predated the Internet's seeming invention of "everywhere" (which often ends up feeling like "nowhere").”

“Even then, I could still appreciate the moment of simply making sounds with a group of people. There is another place you go to in those instances, and it feels vast, refreshing, like you're creati...”

“We would go out and play these songs and people could interpret them however the hell they wanted.”

“I suppose we were better observers than communicators; we were all subjects to be worried over, complained about, even adored, but never quite people to be held or loved. There was an intellectual,...”

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

“A word is not the same with one writer as it is with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake....”

“I am the perfect version of me.”

“But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.”

“I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it.”

“The life of my people is to remember forever; each head granary is full. The life of your people is to forget: your thing granaries ("museums"), and not yourselves, are full.”

“We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us.”

“The living sinners on deadly ground.”