“I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.”

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

“There are places I'll rememberAll my life though some have changedSome forever not for betterSome have gone and some remainAll these places have their momentsWith lovers and friends I still can recallSome are dead and some are livingIn my life I've loved them all”

“I was the walrus, but now I am John...and so my friends, you'll just have to carry on. The dream is over.”

“People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine. . . . I always wondered, ``Why has nobody discovered me?'' In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn't need? I got fuckin' lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie ``You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous, '' and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them? I was different I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint - express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a teacher”

“One thing I can tell you is you have to be free. Come together, right now, over me.”

“When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.”