“Song-writing's just kinda like catching fish--you sit there and pull them out as they go by--though I think Bob Dylan's up stream from me somewhere.”

“If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.”

“Falling in love like that? Writing poetry, crying at pop songs? Dragging people into photo-booths, taking a while day to make a compilation tape, asking people if they wanted to share your bed, just for company? If you quoted Bob Dylan or T.S. Eliot or, God forbid, Brecht at someone these days they would smile politely and step quietly backwards, and who would blame them?”

“Everybody is waiting for cooler weather--and I am just waiting for you--. (Bob Dylan in a letter)”

“I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground, and you just pick them up.”

“For me the experience of writing is really an experience of losing control.… I think it’s very much like dreaming or like surfing. You go out there and wait for a wave, and when it comes it takes you somewhere and you don’t know where it’ll go.”