“You have to plant doubt […] It’s like planting a seed that takes time to germinate. It might look like nothing is happening, but then suddenly the doubt will flower into some kind of action […] Patience is what is needed. People need to hear the truth, not just once but again and again. That’s what the politics of change is all about, patience and repetition, until the truth sinks in.”

“People are going to say, ‘Well, it’s not very truthful.’ But a songwriter doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth. It’s like people who read Shakespeare plays, but they never see a Shakespeare play. I think they just use his name.”

“The thing about patience, I mean real patience, is that it is most needed when there is something you really want to see happen. That’s patience.”

“How plants grow: Quickly. Most plants grow fast and die young. People get seventy years, a bean plant gets four months, maybe five. Once the itty-bitty baby plant peeks out of the ground, it sprouts leaves, so it can absorb more sun. Then it sleeps, eats, and sunbathes until it’s ready to flower—a teenage plant. This is a bad time to be a rose or a zinnia or a marigold, because people attack with scissors and cut off what’s pretty. But plants are cool. If the rose is picked, the plant grows another one. It needs to bloom to produce more seeds.”

“This was what it was. The ruin of it. The depth of it. Have it once and you can have it again. That’s the riddle. That’s the truth.”

“It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.”