“There was no ambition to be famous, no desire to have pieces played by famous orchestras, no secret wish for commissions or prizes or for being “taken up” by prominent art lovers. I simply hoped I could learn to do something well.”

“Beauty! Art! Wit!Wonderment! Humility!Arrogance! Style!Virtue! Decency!Patience!And all the others,Gone, trampled by theNewly-polished jack bootsOf the clog-suited society.I'm a stranger here, fromAnother planet;Not spotted yet, butGetting peculiar stares>Forbidden entrance toAll the places whereAir remains,Where green is trueand water unmolested.In any other time,(Excepting Attila's)I'd be a hero.Why, they'd even nameAn alley after meAnd put a blotting-paperPlaque on all my doors.Not because I was greatBut because I insisted onAll the words and ways rejected byThose who wait ferallyIn the ancient trees.”

“When you’re young, no matter how many unpleasant things have happened to you (unless by that time you’ve become hopelessly neurotic), hope returns daily, even hourly. The sight of a beautiful person, bird, tree, house, flower can lift your spirits like a thermal does the wings of a gliding gull!”

“Give me that warm feeling,That makes me believe again.Give me that soft answer,The kind you gave me way back when.Give me some true kindness,That brightens the sky again.Give me the best that's in you,And encouragement now and then.Dust off those long-lost manners!Bury ambition and guile!Unfurl those lovely bannersOf virtue and laughter and style!Give me that warm feeling,Take off that impersonal glove.Remember, remember we're dealingWith that fair and rare thing called love!”

“A refurbished Star Wars is on somewhere or everywhere. I have no intention of revisiting any galaxy. I shrivel inside each time it is mentioned. Twenty years ago, when the film was first shown, it had a freshness, also a sense of moral good and fun. Then I began to be uneasy at the influence it might be having. The first bad penny dropped in San Francisco when a sweet-faced boy of twelve told me proudly that he had seen Star Wars over a hundred times. His elegant mother nodded with approval. Looking into the boy's eyes I thought I detected little star-shells of madness beginning to form and I guessed that one day they would explode.'I would love you to do something for me,' I said.'Anything! Anything!' the boy said rapturously.'You won't like what I'm going to ask you to do,' I said.'Anything, sir, anything!''Well,' I said, 'do you think you could promise never to see Star Wars again?'He burst into tears. His mother drew herself up to an immense height. 'What a dreadful thing to say to a child!' she barked, and dragged the poor kid away. Maybe she was right but I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities.”

“There is so much. I had no fucking clue I could feel this way, this much. It's like some deep well opened up inside me, and now all the love in all the world is being poured through me into her.”

“The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself "Oh now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home. And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure.”