“I see a city in the desert liesThe vanity of an ancient kingBut the city lies in broken piecesWhile the wind howls and the vultures sing”

“Sweet desert roseEach of her veils, a secret promiseThis desert flowerNo sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this”

“Every road I walked would take me down to the seaWith every broken promise in my sackAnd every love would always send the ship of my heartOver the rolling sea”

“There is no monopoly of common senseOn either side of the political fenceWe share the same biologyRegardless of ideologyBelieve me when I say to youI hope the Russians love their children too[...]There's no such thing as a winnable warIt's a lie we don't believe anymore ..."(The Russians)”

“He knows that something somewhere has to break/He sees the family home now looming in the headlights/The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache/Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage/on the shore of a dark Scottish lake”

“I don't drink coffee I take tea my dearI like my toast done on one side ..."(Englishman in New York)”

“The alley is a pitch for about twenty women leaning in doorways, chain-smoking. In their shiny open raincoats, short skirts, cheap boots, and high-heeled shoes they watch the street with hooded eyes, like spies in a B movie. Some are young and pretty, and some are older, and some of them are very old, with facial expressions ranging from sullen to wry. Most of the commerce is centred on the slightly older women, as if the majority of the clients prefer experience and worldliness. The younger, prettier girls seem to do the least business, apparent innocence being only a minority preference, much as it is for the aging crones in the alley who seem as if they’ve been standing there for a thousand years.In the dingy foyer of the hotel is an old poster from La Comédie Française, sadly peeling from the all behind the desk. Cyrano de Bergerac, it proclaims, a play by Edmond Rostand. I will stand for a few moments to take in its fading gaiety. It is a laughing portrait of a man with an enormous nose and a plumed hat. He is a tragic clown whose misfortune is his honour. He is a man entrusted with a secret; an eloquent and dazzling wit who, having successfully wooed a beautiful woman on behalf of a friend cannot reveal himself as the true author when his friend dies. He is a man who loves but is not loved, and the woman he loves but cannot reach is called Roxanne.That night I will go to my room and write a song about a girl. I will call her Roxanne. I will conjure her unpaid from the street below the hotel and cloak her in the romance and the sadness of Rostand’s play, and her creation will change my life.”