“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.”

“People take on the shapes of the songs and the stories that surround them, especially if they don't have their own song.”

“Songs remain. They last...A song can last long after the events and the people in it are dust and dreams and gone. That's the power of songs.”

“It begins, as most things begin, with a song.”

“A song can last long after the events and people in it are dust and dreams and gone.”

“Most of us find our own voices only after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people.”

“I like 'pencil-necked weasel'. It has 'pencil' in it. Pencils are good things. You can draw or write things with pencils. I think it's what you call someone when you're worried that using a long word like 'intellectual' may have too many syllables. It's not something that people who have serious, important things to say call other people.”