Songwriters from the United States

"You know that it would be untrue You know that I would be a liar If I was to say to you Girl, we couldn't get much higher. Come on baby, light my fire — Come on baby, light my fire — Try to set the night on fire."

"I didn't plan on rock 'n' roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock 'n' roll with jazz, and I thought I could make money playing music. In rock 'n' roll you can realize anything that you can in jazz or anything. There's no limitation other than the beat. You have more freedom than you do in anything except jazz — which is dying — as far as making any money is concerned."

"In The Doors we have both musicians and poets, and both know of each other's art, so we can effect a synthesis. In the case of Tim Buckley or Dylan you have one man's ideas. Most groups today aren't groups. In a true group all the members create the arrangements among themselves."

"Blue Moon, You saw me standing alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own."

"Blue Moon, You knew just what I was there for, You heard me saying a prayer for, Someone I really could care for."

"Blue Moon, Now I'm no longer alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own."

"Bless our Mountain Greenery home! In a mountain greenery Where God paints the scenery Just two crazy people together"

"She gets too hungry for dinner at eight... She likes a crap game, but never come late... She'd never bother with people she hates... That's why the lady is a tramp."

"I'm wild again, beguiled again A simpering, whimpering child again; Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I. Couldn't sleep and wouldn't sleep When love came and told me, I shouldn't sleep; Bewitched, bothered and bewildered - am I. I'm wild again! Beguiled again! A simpering, whimpering child again, Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I."

"And all at once I lost my breath And all at once was scared to death For all at once I owned the earth and sky. Now I've met Miss Jones We'll keep on meeting till we die, Yes, Miss Jones and I."

"A piece of art is not a loaf of bread. When someone steals a loaf of bread from the store, that's it. The loaf of bread is gone. When someone downloads a piece of music, it's just data until the listener puts that music back together with their own ears, their mind, their subjective experience. How they perceive your work changes your work."

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know."

"It's February the 22nd And I can't tell a lie."

"Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music."

"Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right; But when asked how 'bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet:You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You'll get pie in the sky when you die."

"Workingmen of all countries, unite, Side by side we for freedom will fight: When the world and its wealth we have gained To the grafters we'll sing this refrain: You will eat, bye and bye, When you've learned how to cook and to fry Chop some wood, 'twill do you good, And you'll eat in the sweet bye and bye."

"There is pow'r, there is pow'r In a band of workingmen. When they stand hand in hand, That's a pow'r, that's a pow'r That must rule in every land — One Industrial Union Grand."

"A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over. And I maintain that if a person can put a few common sense facts into a song and dress them up in a cloak of humor, he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers who are too unintelligent or too indifferent to read."

"I'll take the shooting. I'm used to that. I've been shot a few times in the past, and I guess I can stand it, again."

"My will is easy to decide, For there is nothing to divide. My kin don't need to fuss and moan — "Moss does not cling to a rolling stone." My body? — Oh! — If I could choose, I would to ashes it reduce, And let the merry breezes blow My dust to where some flowers grow. Perhaps some fading flower then Would come to life and bloom again. This is my last and final will. Good luck to all of you. [Joe Hill]"

"Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize."

"I die with a clear conscience, I die fighting, not like a coward."

"Workers of the world awaken. Break your chains, demand your rights. All the wealth you make is taken, by exploiting parasites. Shall you kneel in deep submission from your cradle to your grave? Is the height of your ambition to be a good and willing slave?"

"The planet, Earth."

"If there is really one thing that I am proud of in my long labor history, it is that while he was in prison, before he was executed, Joe Hill wrote a song for me dedicated to me, that was called, the "Rebel Girl" and that song, I hope you will do it here some time, it may not be the best of words or the best of music, but it came from the heart and it was certainly so treasured."

"I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night Alive as you or me Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead," "I never died," says he."

"During his short life, he penned some of the Wobblies' most beloved labor songs, including labor movement mainstays like "There Is Power in a Union" and "Rebel Girl," which he dedicated to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and his last words to Big Bill Haywood have since been taken up as a rallying cry-"Don't waste any time in mourning. Organize!""

"It was characteristic of IWW meetings that after the last speech had ended and the applause had died down, the audience would break up into circles, to continue discussing the subject, and later each circle would sing its favorite song. Gradually the circles would merge, and finally each man present, his arms over another's shoulders, would join in Joe Hill's best-known ballad, The Preacher and the Slave."

"'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free, 'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be, And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.'When true simplicity is gain'd To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd, To turn, turn will be our delight 'Till by turning, turning we come round right."

"The man who wrote this claimed it came to him by divine inspiration, and I truly believe that might have been the case. This may be the perfect piece of music. I've sung it close to 15,000 times over the years, and I never get tired of it."

"I don’t think he was musically trained, as far as I can tell from my research. There isn’t a lot of background material to find on this question, but I do believe that he picked up music as it was passed to him through the community. They felt it was a communal gift to be able to write music, a gift from God. They wrote about the experience as having inspirationally received a song."

"The Music Educators National Conference — the professional organization for American music teachers — named it among a handful of songs that every American should know. Teachers ranked it right up there with the "National Anthem," "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "Home on the Range.""

"Everyone agreed that this is a song all Americans should be able to sing. It was a hands-down favorite among teachers. And I've talked with kids in elementary and high schools about it, too. Any youngster can tell you what this song means: Simplicity is sometimes better than complexity, and we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously."

"If I exorcise my devils, well, my angels may leave too."

"Well, I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

"And sometime around 2 AM you end up taking advantage of yourself. Ain't no way around that. Making a scene with a magazine."

"Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk."

"I know a place where a royal flush can never beat a pair, and even Thomas Jefferson is On The Nickel over there."

"How do the angels get to sleep / When the Devil leaves his porch light on?"

"I'm so goddamn horny, the crack of dawn better be careful around me!"

"Your veal cutlet gets up off the plate, It walks down to end of the counter and beat the shit out of my cup of coffee. I guess the coffee just wasn't strong enough to defend itself."

"I don't have a drinking problem ‘cept when I can't get a drink."

"And the things you can’t remember tell the things you can forget, that history puts a saint in every dream."

"The piano has been drinking, not me."

"If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man."

"What's he building in there? We have a right to know."

"Come down off the cross, we can use the wood."

"And someone will head south 'til this whole thing cools off."

"And their mouths are cut like razor blades, and their eyes are like stilettos, and her radiator's steaming and her teeth are in a wreck, she won't let you kiss her, but what in the hell do you expect?"

"If you get far enough away you'll be on your way back home."

"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away."

"The face forgives the mirror, the worm forgives the plough, the question begs the answer, can you forgive me somehow?"

"Some men are searching for the Holy Grail, but there ain't nothing sweeter than riding the rail."

"Pregnant women and Vietnam vets, beggin on the freeway, bout as hard as it gets."

"Well, you know when you're the opening act for large groups? Sometimes you feel like a rectal thermometer, you're going out there taking the temperature of the audience."

"Our Father, who art in Cribari, hallowed be thy glass. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in the lounges. Give us this day our daily splash, and forgive us our hangovers as we forgive those who continue to hangover against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...and somebody give us all a ride home."

"Disneyland is Vegas for children. When I went with the kids, I just about had a stroke. It's the opposite of what they say it is. It's not a place to nurture the imagination. It's just a big clearance sale for useless items. I'm not going back, and the kids won't be allowed to return until they're eighteen, out of the house. And even then, I would block their decision."

"(When asked for advice for younger musicians) "Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell 'em to do that, they'll find a little pot of gold.""

"The dog won't bite if you beat Him with a bone"

"She's been married so many times she's got rice marks all over her face"

"I collaborate with my wife on the songs, and every aspect of it, really— composing, and arranging, and recording, all that business. We have a rhythm and a way of working it. It's kind of like borrowing the same ten bucks from somebody over and over again. But when you live together, it makes it a lot easier, the pay back."

"Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air."

"They say that I have no hits, and I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing."

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate."

"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness....We are monkeys with money and guns."

""I always wondered how Tom Waits would sing 'Greensleeves'...." --Loreena McKennitt, "The Visit"."

"Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, To deck our girls for gay delights! The crimson flower of battle blooms, And solemn marches fill the nights."

"The flag of our stately battles, not struggles of wrath and greed, Its stripes were a holy lesson, its spangles a deathless creed: 'T was red with the blood of freemen and white with the fear of the foe; And the stars that fight in their courses 'gainst tyrants its symbols know."

"What is the harvest of thy saints, O God! who dost abide? Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs In blood and sorrow dyed? What have thy servants for their pains?" "This only — to have tried."

"The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness."

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on."

"I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps, I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His Day is marching on."

"I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel: "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on.""

"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat. Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on."

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on."

"He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succour to the brave, So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of Time his slave, Our God is marching on."

"Arise then... women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts!"

"We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

"From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe our dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace..."

"In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace."

"I only hope you may be able not only to listen, but also to hear me. Your charity must multiply my small voice and do some such miracle as was done when the loaves and fishes fed the multitude in the ancient tune which has just been spoken of."

"Before I say anything on my own account, I want to take the word Christianity back to Christ himself, back to that mighty heart whose pulse seems to throb through the world to-day, that endless fountain of charity out of which I believe has come all true progress and all civilization that deserves the name. As a woman I do not wish to dwell upon any trait of exclusiveness in the letter which belongs to a time when such exclusiveness perhaps could not be helped, and which may have been put in where it was not expressed. I go back to that great Spirit which contemplated a sacrifice for the whole of humanity. That sacrifice is not one of exclusion, but of an infinite and endless and joyous inclusion. And I thank God for it."

"It has been extremely edifying to hear of the good theories of duty and morality and piety which the various religions advocate. I will put them all on one basis, Christian and Jewish and ethnic, which they all promulgate to mankind. But what I think we want now to do is to inquire why the practice of all nations, our own as well as any other, is so much at variance with these noble precepts? These great founders of religion have made the true sacrifice. They have taken a noble human life, full of every human longing and passion and power and aspiration, and they have taken it all to try and find out something about this question of what God meant man to be and does mean him to be. But while they have made this great sacrifice, how is it with the multitude of us? Are we making any sacrifice at all? We think it was very well that those heroic spirits should study, should agonize and bled for us. But what do we do?"

"I need not stand here to repeat any definition of what religion is. I think you will all say that it is aspiration, the pursuit of the divine in the human; the sacrifice of everything to duty for the sake of God and of humanity and of our own individual dignity."

"What is it that passes for religion? In some countries magic passes for religion, and that is one thing I wish, in view particularly of the ethnic faiths, could be made very prominent— that religion is not magic. I am very sure that in many countries it is supposed to be so. You do something that will bring you good luck. It is for the interests of the priesthood to cherish that idea. Of course the idea of advantage in this life and in another life is very strong, and rightly very strong in all human breasts. Therefore, it is for the advantage of the priesthoods to make it to be supposed that they have in their possession certain tricks, certain charms, which will give you either some particular prosperity in this world or possibly the privilege of immortal happiness. Now, this is not religion. This is most mischievous irreligion, and I think this Parliament should say, once for all, that the name of God and the names of his saints are not things to conjure with."

"I think nothing is religion which puts one individual absolutely above others, and surely nothing is religion which puts one sex above another. Religion is primarily our relation to the Supreme, to God himself. It is for him to judge; it is for him to say where we belong, who is highest and who is not; of that we know nothing. And any religion which will sacrifice a certain set of human beings for the enjoyment or aggrandizement or advantage of another is no religion. It is a thing which may be allowed, but it is against true religion. Any religion which sacrifices women to the brutality of men is no religion."

"From this Parliament let some valorous, new, strong, and courageous influence go forth, and let us have here an agreement of all faiths for one good end, for one good thing— really for the glory of God, really for the sake of humanity from all that is low and animal and unworthy and undivine."

"We returned to the city very slowly, of necessity, for the troops nearly filled the road. My dear minister was in the carriage with me, as were several other friends. To beguile the rather tedious drive, we sang from time to time snatches of the army songs so popular at that time, concluding, I think, with John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the ground; His soul is marching on. The soldiers seemed to like this, and answered back, "Good for you!" Mr. Clarke said, "Mrs. Howe, why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?" I replied that I had often wished to do this, but had not as yet found in my mind any leading toward it. I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, "I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them." So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper. I had learned to do this when, on previous occasions, attacks of versification had visited me in the night, and I feared to have recourse to a light lest I should wake the baby, who slept near me. I was always obliged to decipher my scrawl before another night should intervene, as it was only legible while the matter was fresh in my mind. At this time, having completed the writing, I returned to bed and fell asleep, saying to myself, "I like this better than most things that I have written.""

"While the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?" I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed."

"Have we lost our God ? Never for one moment. Unspeakable, He is; the beneficent parent, the terrible, incorruptible judge, the champion of the innocent, the accuser of the guilty, refuge, hope, redeemer, friend; neither palace walls nor prison cells can keep Him out. Every step of our way from the birth hour He has gone with us. Were we at the gallows' foot, and deservedly, He would leave a sweet drop in the cup of death. He would measure suffering to us, but would forbid despair. The victory of goodness must be complete. The lost sheep must be found — ay, and the lost soul must turn to the way in which the peace of God prevails. We learn the dreadful danger of those who wander from the right path, but we may also learn the redeeming power which recalls and reclaims them. So fade our heavens and hells. Christ, if he knew their secrets, did not betray them. On the boundless sea of conjecture we are still afloat, with such mental tools as we possess to guide us, with the skies, the stars, the seasons, seeking a harbor from which no voyager has ever returned."

"To me has been granted a somewhat unusual experience of life. Ninety full years have been measured off to me, their lessons and opportunities unabridged by wasting disease or gnawing poverty. I have enjoyed general good health, comfortable circumstances, excellent company, and the incitements to personal effort which civilized society offers to its members. For this life and its gifts I am, I hope, devoutly thankful. I came into this world a hopeless and ignorant bit of humanity. I have found in it many helps toward the attainment of my full human stature, material, mental, moral. In this slow process of attainment many features have proved transient. Visions have come and gone. Seasons have bloomed and closed, passions have flamed and faded. Something has never left me. My relation to it has suffered many changes, but it still remains, the foundation of my life, light in darkness, consolation in ill fortune, guide in uncertainty. In the nature of things, I must soon lose sight of this sense of constant metamorphosis whose limits bound our human life. How about this unchanging element? Will it die when I shall be laid in earth? The visible world has no answer to this question. For it, dead is dead, and gone is gone. But a deep spring of life within me says: "Look beyond. Thy days numbered hitherto register a divine promise. Thy mortal dissolution leaves this promise unfulfilled, but not abrogated. Thou mayst hope that all that made thy life divine will live for thine immortal part." I have quoted Theodore Parker's great word, and have made no attempt, so far, to bring into view considerations which may set before us the fundamental distinction between what in human experience passes and what abides."

"Life passes, but the conditions of life do not. Air, food, water, the moral sense, the mathematical problem and its solution. These things wait upon one generation much as they did upon its predecessor. What, too, is this wonderful residuum which refuses to disappear when the very features of time seem to succumb to the law of change, and we recognize our world no more ? Whence comes this system in which man walks as in an artificial frame, every weight and lever of which must correspond with the outlines of an eternal pattern? Our spiritual life appears to include three terms in one. They are ever with us, this Past which does not pass, this Future which never arrives. They are part and parcel of this conscious existence which we call Present. While Past and Future have each their seasons of predominance, both are contained in the moment which is gone while we say, "It is here." So the Eternal is with us, whether we will or not, and the idea of God is inseparable from the persuasion of immortality; the Being which, perfect in itself, can neither grow nor decline, nor indeed undergo any change whatever. The great Static of the universe, the rationale of the steadfast faith of believing souls, the sense of beauty which justifies our high enjoyments, the sense of proportion which upholds all that we can think about ourselves and our world, the sense of permanence which makes the child in very truth parent to the man, able to solve the deepest riddle, the profoundest problem in all that is. Let us then willingly take the Eternal with us in our flight among the suns and stars. Experience is our great teacher, and on this point it is wholly wanting. No one on the farther side of the great Divide has been able to inform those on the hither side of what lies beyond."

"The promise of a future life is held to have such prominence in Christ's teaching as to lead Paul to say that the Master "brought life and immortality to light." How did he do this? By filling the life of to-day with the consciousness of eternal things, of truths and principles which would not change if the whole visible universe were to pass away. No one to-day, I think, will maintain that Christ created the hope which he aroused to an activity before undreamed of. The majority of the Jews believed in a life after death, as is shown by the segregation of the Sadducees from the orthodox of the synagogue. The new teaching vindicated the spiritual rights and interests of man. From the depths of his own heart was evolved the consciousness of a good that could not die. Man, the creature of a day, has a vested interest in things eternal."

"The reason which placed the stars, the sense of proportion which we recognize in the planetary system, finds its correspondence in this brain of ours. We question every feature of what we see, think, and feel. We try every link of the chain and find it sound if we ourselves are sound. This power of remotest question and assent is not of to-day nor yesterday. It transcends all bounds of time and space. It weighs the sun, explores the pathway of the stars, and writes, having first carefully read, the history of earth and heaven. It moves in company with the immortals. How much of it is mortal? Only so much as a small strip of earth can cover. These remains are laid away with reverence, having served their time. But what has become of the wonderful power which made them alive ? It belongs to that in nature which cannot die."

"Here I am, in Quaker surroundings, whose restful simplicity is most congenial to me. I feel here the earnest desire for genuine growth and culture which founds a slow but sure success. I am confirmed in my division of human energies. Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build."

"I feel that I must attack this creed of blood, which does much to keep up the cruel and sanguinary views of barbarous ages about God and man. Will take text, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven." Show that Christ brought a new interest into the world; a new vision of God, the loving one; a new view of man, the hopeful and universal one; his death in its character the seal to his perfect life. But we are saved by his doctrine, by the same spirit which animated his life, — we are saved by his life, not by his death, except as it was the necessary moral sequence of his life."

"Charity is an unending self-discipline which always looks and leads towards the eternal affection. Therefore, its triumph shall be lasting and everlasting."

"We can teach no virtues we do not practice," occurred to me this afternoon; for without learning by experience how a virtue is acquired, how can we teach any one to acquire it? I thought of this in connection with the experience of undutiful children. By the working of this natural cause, they will not make their own children dutiful. Read in Luke of the angel which appeared to Christ in Gethsemane, strengthening Him. We all see this angel when we say truly, "Thy will, not mine, be done."

"There is no hell like that of a selfish heart, and there is no misfortune so great as that of not being able to make a sacrifice. These two thoughts come to me strongly this morning. It is something to have learned these truths so that we can never again doubt them."

"see how long Julia Ward Howe lived, and many other old ladies of whom I have read with delight in the American papers. How beautiful it is to see and hear an old woman of eighty or ninety addressing words of love and reason to the young generation!"

"Julia Ward Howe, although this was only discovered about ten years ago, wrote a novel about a hermaphrodite--a man/woman who loves both men and women--that most critics now think was her own meditation on her husband's bisexuality."

"I’ll play it and tell you what it is later."

"I can't tell... All those white tenor players sound alike to me."

"Is that what you wanted, Alfred?"

"The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them."

""You can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played." and "I love Pops" (Louis' nickname) … Louis has been through all kinds of styles. That's good tuba, by the way. You know you can't play anything on a horn that Louis hasn't played — I mean even modern. I love his approach to the trumpet; he never sounds bad. He plays on the beat — with feeling. That's another phrase for swing. I also love the way he sings."

"When they make records with all the mistakes in, as well as the rest, then they'll really make jazz records. If the mistakes aren't there too, it ain't none of you."

"I love Pops, I love the way he sings, the way he plays - everything he does, except when he says something against modern-jazz music."

"What am I supposed to say to that? That's ridiculous. You see the way they can ____ up music? It's a mismatch. They don't complement each other. Max and Mingus can play together, by themselves. Mingus is a hell of a bass player, and Max is a hell of a drummer. But Duke can't play with them, and they can't play with Duke. Now, how are you going to give a thing like that some stars? Record companies should be kicked in the ___. Somebody should take a picket sign and picket the record company."

"Take it off! That's some sad ____, man. In the first place, I hear some Charlie Parker cliches. . . . They don't even fit. Is that what the critics are digging? Them critics better stop having coffee. If there ain't nothing to listen to, they might as well admit it. Just to take something like that and say it's great, because there ain't nothing to listen to, that's like going out and getting a prostitute. [Leonard Feather: This man said he was influenced by Duke Ellington.] I don't give a ____! It must be . Right? I don't care who he's inspired by. That ____ ain't nothing. In the first place he don't have the - you know, the way you touch a piano. He doesn't have the touch that would make the sound of whatever he thinks of come off. I can tell he's influenced by Duke, but to put the loud pedal on the piano and make a run is very old-fashioned to me. And when the alto player sits up there and plays without no tone . . . That's the reason I don't buy any records."

"My ego only needs a good rhythm section."

"Coleman Hawkins told me never to play with someone older than me, and I never have. With older players, there's no force, no drive. With younger players, it's not that you know it all, or I know it all—it's I'm trying to learn it all."

"I know what the power of silence is. When I used to play in clubs, everybody was loud; there was a lot of noise. So I would take my mute off the microphone, and I would play something so soft that you could hardly hear it... and you talk about listening. Roy Eldridge did that. He's one of my favorites."

"The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?"

"Billie Holiday—she was the nicest woman in the world, you know. All she wanted to do was sing. They picked on her and picked on her to get money out of her. You do drugs 'cause you like to, not 'cause it's a life-style.... They picked on Billie so much. She said, "Miles, come and see me in Long Island." She was in love with one of my kids and his curly hair—he used to ride my bicycle and watch the horse at Aqueduct. She said, "Miles, if they'd just leave me alone; they could have the house—everything." You know the way singers shake their asses now. Billie didn't have to do that. Her mouth was so sensuous; she was pretty and she would say certain words and her mouth would quiver, and she always had this white gardenia and long gloves."

"If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow."

"He never wasted a melody. He never wasted a phrase. He and Duke Ellington changed the whole sound. There is no way to describe it because there's nobody on this earth that can do that anymore. What he did to the texture of an orchestration, what he did with a pop song is like writing an original piece. Students will discover him. They'll have to take his music apart layer by layer. That's how they'll know what kind of genius he was."

"For me, music and life are all about style."

"I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?"

"Why'd you put that white bitch on there?"

"When you are creating your own shit, man, even the sky ain't the limit."

"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."

"A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it."

"Try taking the fucking horn out of your mouth."

"It's that goddamned motherfucking 'Machine Gun.'"

"He could very well be the Duke Ellington of Rock 'n' Roll."

"A lot of Negro style-the style of a man like Miles Davis or Ray Charles or the style of a man like myself is based on a knowledge of what people are really saying and on our refusal to hear it. You pick up on the beat, which is much more truthful than words."

"Another place I worked a lot was the Open Door, where we used to go to hear Miles. I didn't go to hear Miles; I went to see his wardrobe, because he had gorgeous clothes. He always played into the drapes and showed complete contempt for the audience."

"I would like to hear more of the consummate melodic master, but I feel that big business and his record company have had a corrupting influence on his material. The rock and pop thing certainly draws a wider audience. It happens more and more these days, that unqualified people with executive positions try to tell musicians what is good and what is bad music. It’s tempting for the musician to prejudice his own views when recording opportunities are so infrequent but I for one am determined to resist the temptation."

"Miles said he looked on his need for constant change as a curse. However, Miles, along with Duke Ellington, in terms of looking for models of how you strategize with a band, have been there constantly in the background for me. Not the Beatles as a construct for a group, not Led Zeppelin, not the Floyd. My guides have always been Miles and Duke."

"And on one particularly weighty draft he turned in, I told him to go home that night, pour a drink, and listen to some Miles Davis. I told him the thing about Miles Davis is the silences. The notes he doesn’t play. So with that in mind, go take another swing at your draft, find me some silences, and then I’ll get to work."

"When the world speaks of Miles, the legend, they have no idea who the man really was. The Miles I knew was sensitive and ailing, bruised by the hurts this life metes out. With trembling lips, he told me of the years during his childhood in East St. Louis when he'd been called Blackie by his friends and even some of his family, gazed down upon as a nobody, rendered invisible by his dark hue. He told me of the time, at age thirteen, when he'd been seduced by a grown woman, forced into his first sexual encounter with a friend of a relative. He spoke of the time when his father, a well-to-do dentist, had wanted him to follow in his career path, until a teacher who'd recognized Miles' gift intervened. "Forget it. Little Davis is not going to be any dentist," that teacher told Miles' father. "He's going to be a musician." The first time Miles blew that horn, he'd found his consolation. In playing that trumpet, he did the only thing he knew how, the one thing that made him feel worthy. That is the Miles I knew and, in time, grew to cherish."

"I don't excuse Miles' conduct any more than I dismiss my willingness, consciously or unknowingly, to indulge it. We mortals breathe incongruity. That I chose to stay with Miles is still, in many ways, confounding to me. And yet I've come to realize that Miles' behavior felt sorely familiar, a song, blaring and dissonant, that I'd learned in my early years. [...] My father had taught me the music. And my mother, in her own way, had emphasized each measure, hummed along with the clamor even as she railed against it. "Men will be men," she'd sometimes mutter, following a feud with my father, her way of rationalizing his adultery. [...] And in my Upper East Side high-rise, a world away from the slum of my girlhood and yet overlapping with it, Miles would be Miles."

"Most jazz musicians are happy just to achieve some popularity, but Miles Davis was a genuine icon. Famously fashionable even in his early days – a Davis biography was subtitled ‘The Man in the Green Shirt’ after a particularly stylish album cover – his adoption of jazz-rock in the 1970s and ’80s made him a superstar, bewitching audiences with not just his spare, declamatory trumpet-playing, but also his brooding persona. Dubbed the ‘Prince of Darkness’, he prowled about the stage in extravagantly hip garb, mercurially cueing his heavily amplified ensemble, creating a delicious aura of mystery and occasional menace. Musically, Davis’s foray into fusion divided his fans. Older listeners preferred the Davis of the ’50s and ’60s, whose brilliant bands reinvented and extended the bebop tradition as well as launching such seminal talents as John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock. But change seemed the driving principle of Davis’s artistic and personal life, and embracing rock seemed a necessary progression."

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy."

"A symphonic conductor should reconcile himself to the realization that, regardless of his approach or temperament, the eventual result is the same — the orchestra will hate him."

"I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton."

"He never asks the orchestra to do anything which contradicts the players' feeling of what the music signifies or what the printed notes of the score actually mean in plain musical language. To his credit he does not pretend to omniscience. When a certain progression of programs with the Philharmonic decreed that he conduct the Brahms Fourth Symphony two seasons ago, he disavowed intensive rehearsals with the simple statement to the orchestra: "Gentlemen, you know the work better than I do." Both the compliment and the attitude endeared themselves so much to the orchestra that they literally forgot themselves in a mass effort to justify his statement—and, as one of those who heard the performance, I can testify that they delivered one of the most powerful and integrated interpretations of the score that New York has experienced in years."

"Incompatibility. And besides, I think she hated me."

"This piano plays. Which is more than I can say for her."

"It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."

"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

"I don't drink liquor. I don't like it. It makes me feel good."

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath."

"My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin."

"I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.""

"An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall."

"I heartily approve of her campaign to beautify America. It would be greatly improved if the First Family were kept out of sight."

"Zsa Zsa Gabor not only worships at The Golden Calf, she insists on barbecuing it for lunch."

"Ballet is the fairies' baseball."

"The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Democrats let the poor be corrupt, too."

"John O'Hara was a terrible bore as a young man—always looking for a fight, and making sure he never found one."

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."

"He writes the kind of music you whistle on the way into the theater."

"If George is around, it will."

"It's an advantage having a limited output. When George Gershwin is asked to play his repertoire, he plays all evening. I just play "Lady Play Your Mandolin" and I'm through."

"I envy people who drink — at least they know what to blame everything on."

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left."

"I am no more humble than my talents require."

"I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself."

"I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients."

"Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision."

"Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her."

"The other night my daughter Lorna reminisced about the time I regressed to complete infantilism. We were having dinner and tapioca pudding was served. A wild glint came into my eyes and in the presence of my wife and children I shrieked at the top of my voice, “I love this more than anything in the world!” I had to be withdrawn from tapioca pudding slowly. It was one of the few times I wasn’t committed to achieve withdrawal."

"When I used to speak of the lunatic fringe, I didn’t know I was going to be head of it."

"Apropos of nothing, I asked [Truman] Capote, “Are you for integration?” He said, “Yes, are you for integration?” I said, “I’m for disintegration… personal disintegration.”"

"I rated the drug Demerol over sex as the ultimate pleasure at one time. Now I don’t have access to either."

"As a rule I never read bad reviews about myself because my best friends invariably tell me about them."

"A psychiatrist once diagnosed my troubles as “an abdication of will.”"

"Instant unconsciousness had been my greatest passion for ten years."

"I have seizures of momentary sanity."

"In the middle and late 50′s I was in hospitals constantly. I was committed every time I drew a breath or took an extra twelve pills–which never affected me much because I’m not suicidal."

"When I was in my prime, I was an egomaniac and didn’t allow my wife to buy the best sardines–the King Oscars–which bear my name. I felt there should be only one king in my house."

"[Ira Gershwin] said that [P.G.] Wodehouse will address a letter, stamp it and throw it out of his third-story window onto the street trusting in the good nature of passerby to pick it up and mail it."

"The book should be a happy introduction to a character who, if he did not exist, could not be imagined."

"Oscar would have been here at the head table—but he was feeling well."

"I was fond of Oscar, but there was something about our twin natures which made us exchange insults. I told him that I wanted to make a date with him every day so that I would know where he was and could avoid the place."

"I was on Information Please with him and afterward there was a party and idly Oscar sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember how the conversation hushed in the crowded room. The waiters stopped serving and stood, silently listening. Yet, on this TV show, he seems almost a buffoon, as if he is deliberately mocking himself, drawing a caricature of the old Levant."

"I can see him to this day. He was witty and funny, always playing himself in the movies. He smoked so many cigarettes, there was a nicotine streak on his upper lip and on his fingers between the index finger and the second one. He was a wonderful guy—but he played the piano like a sledgehammer."

"It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”"

"About his neuroses and hypochondria, the 1920s and 1930s wit Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, once said of him: "There isn't anything the matter with Levant that a few miracles wouldn't cure.""

"This album is one of the best albums in the past 20 years. There's nothing that touches this album. And that sounds like I'm being cocky, but I'm just so excited."

"A rental car in Savannah, Georgia. In the middle of touring, we had a week off. I have a problem with flying, so instead of going home, my wife came to me and we rented a car and drove around. Just pulled off on some dirt roads..."

"What song do I hate? I think "Daughters," by John Mayer, would be a good candidate. I don't know why he bugs me so bad.""

"Look at a band like the Bravery. They're signed because we're a band," Flowers said. "I've heard rumors about [members of] that band being in a different kind of band, and how do you defend that? If you say, 'My heart really belongs to what I'm doing now,' but you used to be in a ska band. I can see the Strokes play or Franz Ferdinand play and it's real, and I haven't gotten that from the Bravery. I think people will see through them."

""Now he's just signed Fall Out Boy, which means more of his attention will go to them that should have gone to The Killers"."

"It's something that you dream about, but Milli Vanilli got a Grammy. So it's hard to decide whether you're happy or not."

"Barack Obama being elected. I think about how… um… how my sons will grow up only knowing a black President. [Wells with tears] I can’t explain how that’s changed America. There’s an optimism now that wasn’t there for black people."

"I think I always knew that I would have kids but I didn’t… understand… the… whooooo [brims with tears once again]. That I could love my kids the way that I love ‘em. I didn’t know there was… room for that. You love your wife, your family, but it’s different with your kids. I didn’t know I could be so selfless. I would do anything for my kids. Anything. I guess everybody goes through it."

"He is a little genius. He's a deep soul and a spirit man. I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg [with 2010's Flamingo]."

""The Killers' lead singer doesn't like me, but he can eat it. I think he has some great tunes." ~ John Mayer"

"If you have seen them live, they are incredibly boring. You remember what they used to look like? Then people started comparing them to us and suddenly they got a stylist," he said. "And Brandon frosted his hair and he's buying the cute pink jacket."

"I think both [Killers frontman] Brandon [Flowers] and I are alike because we both use too much hair product and run our mouths way more than our bands like."

"At exactly which point do you start to realize, that life without knowledge is death in disguise?"

"We played against each other like puppets, swearing you got pull When the only pull you got is the wool over your eyes Getting knowledge in jail like a blessing in disguise Look in the skies for god, what you see besides the smog Is broken dreams flying away on the wings of the obscene."

"Creating crime rates to fill the new prisons they build Over money and religion theres more blood that spills Like the wounds of slaves in cotton fields that never heal Whats the deal?"

"These cats drink champagne and toast to death and pain, Like slaves on a ship talking about who's got the flyest chain"

"Persistance, dedication Consistent, motivation, resistance to stagnation of information, distribute it free to the entire population No hesitation, makin it public No privitazation from corporations"

"These niggas ain't thugs, the real thugs is the government. Don't matter if you're Independent, Democrat or Republican"

"Niggas with knowledge are more dangerous than niggas with guns. They make the guns easy to get and try to keep niggas dumb"

"We commute through computers. Spirits stay mute while our ego spread rumors. We're survivalists turned to consumers"

"Spit bars you can't touch, like tits in strip bars, get scarred, I drop hits to hit hard"

"Fuck the harder way, I'm doing it the smarter way"

"Those who would trade in their freedom For their protection deserve neither"

"Yo, I heard it's said the revolution won't be televised But in the land of milk and honey there's a date you gotta sell it by Otherwise it just expires and spoils and these folks jump out the pot when the water too hot"

"Life is a beautiful struggle People search through the rubble for a suitable hussle Some people using their noodle Some people using their muscle Some people put it all together make it fit like a puzzle"

"Back in the day they stole our smile, so we clothe our teeth in gold."

"Hip-Hop's last hope like Obi-Wan Kenobi Through your television I'm shining light like a train Comin out like earthworms when it rains, bringing it like the C.I.A. be bringing in crack cocaine bailing out of planes with the George Bush connections, I push Reflection like I'm selling izm, like a dealer building the system Supply and the demand it's all just capitalism Niggaz don't sell crack cause they like to see blacks smoke Niggaz sell crack cause they broke"

"Learn how to heal yourself and stop fucking with them hospitals"

"Oh no well I / been there before / and I ain't a comin back around / there no more / no I'm not"

"Shall we go, you and I, while we can? Through... the transitive nightfall of diamonds"

"When I was just a little young boy, Papa said "Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go.""

"Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore. When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door."

"It's the same story the crow told me, it's the only one he knows. Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go."

"Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait. Wo-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?"

"In the timbers of Fennario, the wolves are running round. The winter was so hard and cold, froze ten feet 'neath the ground...I sat down to my supper, 'twas a bottle of red whisky. I said my prayers and went to bed, that's the last they saw of me..."

"Nothing's for certain, It could always go wrong, Come in when it's raining, Go on out when it's gone, We could have us a high time, Living the good life, Well I know"

"See here how everything leads up to this day. And it's just like any other day that's ever been. Sun going up and then, the sun, it going down. Shine through my window, and my friends they come around."

"Trouble ahead, Trouble behind, and you know that notion just crossed my mind"

"Trouble ahead. A lady in red. Take my advice. You'd be better off dead!"

"Trouble with you is The trouble with me Got two good eyes But you still don't see Come round the bend You know it's the end The fireman screams and The engine just gleams"

"There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night. And if you go, no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone."

"You who choose to lead must follow, But if you fall, you fall alone, If you should stand then who's to guide you? If I knew the way I would take you home"

"Let there be songs to fill the air."

"Lovers come and go, the river roll, roll, roll."

"Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be here."

"In the secret space of dreams, Where I dreaming lay amazed, When the secrets all are told, And the petals all unfold. When there was no dream of mine, You dreamed of me"

"Sometimes the light's all shining on me, Other times I can barely see, Lately it occurs to me, What a long strange trip it's been..."

"It seems like all this life was just a dream"

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own"

"Sometimes we live no particular way but our own"

"I like your smile but I ain't your type, Don't shake the tree when the fruit ain't ripe"

"Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right."

"I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools."

"In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face, Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home. Roll away ... the dew"

"Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see."

"Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done"

"The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master"

"Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair"

"While you were gone, these spaces filled with darkness. The obvious was hidden. With nothing to believe in. The compass always points to Terrapin."

"Ain't nobody messin' with you but you"

"There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot."

"But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart"

"There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live"

"Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest."

"Practice, practice, practice. Practice until you get a guitar welt on your chest...if it makes you feel good, don't stop until you see the blood from your fingers. Then you'll know you're on to something!"

"Apartheid isn't that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man … They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands ...These are different people. You give 'em toothpaste, they fucking eat it."

"Ted likes his meat dead, enough said"

"With all due respect, many in the entertainment industry are deep into mind-altering substance abuse, and when one’s logic and intellectual calculating powers are replaced with dopey feel-good, fantasy-driven denial, the democratic party serves them well."

"Pat Buchanan...was fired by MSNBC for doing nothing more than voicing his rock-solid conservative thoughts on the otherwise failing network....The real message of the left is intolerance, zealotry, bigotry and hate. The left has no use for the First Amendment or the rest of the Constitution unless it fits their multicultural, euro-socialist agenda, which is failing all across Europe and everywhere it is practiced."

"If it was up to me, if you uttered the word 'gun control,' we'd put you in jail."

"And let's all be honest here; more of us believe in the American hero Sheriff Joe Arpaio's thorough investigation into your phony birth certificate and phony history than the phony media's smoke and mirrors."

"Big bangs don't make this. That's not a big bang. God made that. That's a liver. That's mystical. You and I can't make livers. Things banging don't make livers. This is mystical stuff. This is magic. This is perfection."

"I'll show you some security and I'll show you some peace: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. You fuck with us and we'll fucking melt you."

"They got how many trillions of dollars in gold and silver and jewelry and art and real estate and stained glass and they're passing the basket on Sunday so they can get the tomato farmers' donation?"

"[I] never thought too highly of anyone foolish enough to take on the nickname of a life-destroying dope product and promote such family-destroying conduct on stage."

"Though I'm no expert on all things Pantera, I did hear their version of 'Cat Scratch Fever' and it was exceedingly white. No soul, no balls, no feel. Caucasian all the way. Elements of dope, booze and heroin disconnect quite apparent as usual. There is no excuse for such horrifically negative, irresponsible, criminal, America-wrecking behavior as such chimp-like substance abuse. Period. They appeared as Ozzy-like zombies on TV. Ya think. American drunks and dopers are allahpuke terrorists' favorite allies. Damn them. Damn them all."

"I indeed do respect all people for the positives in their life. Sadly, there comes a time of diminishing returns in the balance. At the end of the day, my respect is reserved for those solidly in the asset column of mankind."

"I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America."

"Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I'm beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War. Our Founding Fathers' concept of limited government is dead."

"You probably can't use the term `toxic cunt' in your magazine, but that's what [Hilary Clinton] is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."

"In Ted's world, we want the death penalty to be imposed at the scene of the crime."

"Should a kid going to a Grateful Dead concert who's caught with sugar-cube-encrusted LSD go to prison for life with no parole? Of course not. But should that guy get caned? Yeah. And should he go to prison in an overcrowded cell where a huge, unclean black man will fuck him in the ass every night? Yeah. Now, that sounds cruel, doesn't it? Well, tough fucking shit."

"Obama, he's a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Let's hear it for him. And then I was in New York. I said, "Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch. Since I'm in California, how about , she might want to suck on my machine gun. And , ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions?"

"I got to tell you, guys that have sex with each other's anal cavities -- how can we offend guys that actually have anal sex? Don't you think that might offend some of us who think that's despicable?"

"Along with President Obama and my hero Richard Pryor, we join Howard Stern, Johnny Cochran, Mark Furman [sic], O.J. Simpson, Kid Rock, James Brown, the mighty Funkbrothers, Al not so Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Malcolm X, Kanye West, Fifty Cent and pretty much every black rapper and hip hopper on earth, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, a few thousand NBA, NFL, MLB sports stars, legions of famous and not so famous musicians, actors, politicians, media personalities and assorted celebrities of every color, creed, ethnicity and walk of life, along with a few million others around the world who have used and continue to use the word nigger at one time or another. The dishonest referencing of the word by its first letter is the epitome of political correctness gone mad."

"The problem with guys like , the former press secretary of George W. Bush, is that he’s drunk the inside-the-beltway political Kookaid for so long that he actually believes his own spin. Poor guy went down for the third time in the denial goo long ago. Donald Trump’s biggest critics all believe that the engine of all things good and serious emanates from the professional Fedzillacrats who apparently enjoy wallowing in the said goo of Washington, D.C. ... Donald Trump is a mess? Maybe Mr. Fleischer should open up the political garbage can he and the majority of Fedzillacrats live in and take a look at the real, certifiable, rotting, stinking mess that has been caused by the professional scammers of both political stripes for the past 50 years. ... If you want to watch a real political train wreck, witness a real mess in progress, you need look no further than the professional politicians who have borrowed and spent this country into oblivion. Trump that if you dare."

"Mr. Trump didn’t create this economic swan dive to the street. Our politicians did."

"Our forefathers wouldn’t recognize the political labyrinth our professional politicians have created. The very things our forefathers warned us not to do as it pertains to embracing a centralized, powerful federal government is the very cliff our professional politicians have steered the Goodship America straight off of."

"American doesn’t need any more professional political punks in D.C., unless you believe sticking a red hot crowbar in your eye is an excellent treatment for cataracts. It’s professional political punks who have created the pus-filled infected wound of fundamental transformation, not Donald Trump. They are the ones calling for a bigger bureaucratic shovel for the hole they have already dug, not Donald Trump. They are the ones who have lied to Americans or intentionally hidden the truth from us, not Donald Trump. It’s professional politicians who are the enemy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not Donald Trump."

"Donald Trump’s message sings to Americans because he doesn’t play politically correct brain-dead games. He calls them like he sees them. That’s refreshing to millions of Americans who believe political correctness is a public cancer that has eroded free speech and everything else good about America."

"Donald Trump should be given the Medal of Freedom for speaking his mind in such a bold, honest and straight-forward manner."

"GOP, your very existence is on the line here. Show some honesty or you’re done."

"The magic's in my hands When in doubt I whip it out I got me a rock 'n' roll band It's a free-for-all"

"I make the pussy purr with The stroke of my hand They know they gettin' it from me They know just where to go When they need their lovin man They know I do it for free They give me cat scratch fever"

"Ted Nugent would make a good cult leader. He’s got all the ingredients: charisma, fame in a popular art form, a highly articulate and highly singular worldview and a badass public persona. Also, the man is heavily armed."

"But while Nugent has taken some measure of responsibility for his "subhuman mongrel" remark, the comment is just a drop in the bucket compared to his long history of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, animus towards immigrants, and propensity to use violence-tinged language."

"Where is this mysterious dictionary, in which “subhuman mongrel”—a direct racist slur, calling the President and the nine million or so Americans who identify themselves as multiracial animals, with an etymology that includes citations involving the Ku Klux Klan, slaveholders, and Nazis—is “street-fighter terminology” for a liar or breaker of oaths?"

"Then there is Ted Nugent — the NRA’s most prominent, unabashed bigot. “The Noog” has served as an NRA board member for years and has never been shy about his despicable views on race."

"If you ever plan to motor west, Travel my way, take the highway that is best. Get your kicks on route sixty-six."

"If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed, She can't help it, the girl can't help it, If she winks an eye, the bread slice turn to toast, She can't help it, the girl can't help it, If she got a lot, of what they call the most, She can't help it, the girl can't help it."

"Someone’s been eating my porridge said the daddy bear, Someone’s been eating my porridge said the mama bear, Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!"

"It's weird when you open up Billboard because you see your name next to 50 Cent and Madonna. I mean, 50 Cent who I grew up on for the last month."

"We'll just drink and go on."

"She's not that attractive. I mean, she was hard to look at at first, but I figured, rough around the edges, but she can sing good."

"We have faith in the people who support us. If they really like us, they're going to want to be cool enough to buy our music, and realize that if they don't, the record label gets our first-born child."

"We're actually high on the Christian charts, and I'm like, 'What the f*** are we even doing there?'"

"As far as spiritually - the message we as a band want to convey more than anything is simple - God is Love."

"I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins."

"It's about the girlfriend who left me last year. I tried to put all my anger in those words, even though I'm just as much to blame for the break-up. 'Soma' is based on the idea that a love relationship is almost the same as opium: it slowly puts you to sleep, it soothes you, and gives you the illusion of sureness and security. Very deceivable."

"...Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy -- it has a weight to it."

"There's a really a cold, cold side to my personality that I'm not really comfortable with. I'm constantly dealing with that side of my personality versus my overly sentimental side… There's just a side that's a real motherfucker side; it's nothing I want to admit or even look at. It's where a lot of my strength lies. It's been the part of me that's been able to steel my spine against situations that probably would have broken a lot of people, or caused them to jump off the loop."

"About six months ago, I listened to Siamese Dream. That was the first time I'd ever really heard my own album, because I had separated from the experience of making the record. And it really moved me. It made me cry, it's so beautiful."

"The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too."

"I'm Irish and I was born on St. Patrick's Day. I'm lucky sevens."

"People always called The Cure gloomy, but listening to The Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way."

"We're like a really nice drink. We help people get through the day--we make life a little sunnier. I don't think we have any profound effect. If anybody has had a profound effect, it's The Beatles, and their effect is still minimal. There are things in the world way more important than music. Family is 50 times more important than music."

"My mother came to a Smashing Pumpkins gig once, and I was wearing a dress. She was very upset. She said, 'Everyone's gonna think you're a fag.' I said,'Well, they already think I'm an asshole.'"

"Actually, I was having dinner with Michael (Stipe, of R.E.M.) when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that."

"One of the other reasons that we quit having journalists come here is because they would kind of hang out for several days, and they'd see me around at the clubs, and the story would get written and it would be me and my 'disciples' or my 'acolytes.' The word acolyte - that's like fuck you. These are my friends, but because they're not Billy Corgan or Helena Christensen, they become my 'posse' or my 'followers,' and it's like, fuck you for insulting my friends like that. That's so fucking incredible to me."

"This is not a reaction against a negative world. It's a response to a negative world."

"I don't necessarily believe that the sting of failure is a bad thing. It gives you a certain amount of freedom to just say fuck it!"

"...What people miss about (Marilyn) Manson is that he is just reflecting, he's an artist, people want to focus that energy on him, but it's not really him, it's really about you. So for every guy sitting there with a beer and a .45 in his belt, Manson is just speaking to that end of society. He's speaking as an artist. He's not speaking as himself, and that's where people get really lost with Manson."

"Music is 99% of my life. But I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves."

"For a 6-foot-3 guy with no hair and a whiny voice, I've done all right."

"Life is everything and nothing all at once."

"I’m trying to figure out how to take the instrument and have it still sound like a guitar, but put you in a different universe."

"‘What happened when alternative music came out was authentic. It was a reflection of what was happening at the time and it had to do with authenticity. This is the reflection of the authenticity now. We’re in the reflection of it."

"The simplest way that I can understand therapy is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it and ultimately align ourselves with who we really are. Life, experiences, traumas -- whatever -- they all add up to make you some altered version of what you are. So there's this battle that goes on between what you are and what you become, and it's been very important for me to unravel what I was taught to be or what I became. and to draw a direct parallel to music -- the closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets, because I think what talent I do have is connected to that person, it's not a manipulative process, it's intuitive. You can learn about chords and guitars, but there's a piece of you that makes it individual, and it's been a slow process for me to become whatever it is that I'm supposed to be."

"I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out."

"I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is very much feminine... For me the idea of having a feminine perspective is a willingness to be vulnerable. It's very easy to cock-rock and posture. I can't help but wear my heart on my sleeve—I'm like nervous endings. That's just the way that I am and, to me, that's very female because it's not a male thing to do. A male thing to do would be to fuckin' posture."

"The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets."

"When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before."

"My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children."

"To me, music was about being accepted and escaping from this crummy existence."

"The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band."

"We have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all it does is drag you down."

"People act like Nirvana invented grunge; they just took it and personified it."

"Nineties rock guitar began with a tug-of-war between shred and grunge, but Billy Corgan found a unique solution to the conflict. The hulking Smashing Pumpkins frontman and chief songwriter dabbled in both styles, and then some. Corgan created guitar armadas, placing up to 40 guitar overdubs on a single track. These stuck out in an alternative scene that was competing to make the most lo-fi album. The Pumpkins’ defiantly massive orchestrations were inspired by the shoegaze scene and unfashionable pomp rockers like Queen and Boston. He fully harnessed the Big Muff fuzz’s potential to create a wall of noise, and like his heroes Cheap Trick, created a sound that was equal parts rock fury and pop magic. When metal was a dirty word, Corgan embraced Sabbath and Van Halen, revealing an artist always unafraid to be himself."

"Folks say that you've Found someone new To do the things I used to do for you. Just call my name, I'm not ashamed, I'll come running back to you.Can't sleep at night, I can't eat a bite. When you were mine I didn't treat you right. Just call my name, I know, I know I'm not ashamed. I'll come running back to you."

"All day long they work so hard Till the sun is goin' down. Working on the highways and byways And wearing, wearing a frown. You hear them moanin' their lives away. Then you hear somebody say:"That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang. That's the sound of the men working on the chain gang.""

"Cupid draw back your bow And let your arrow go Straight to my lover's heart for me For me... Cupid please hear my cry And let your arrow fly Straight to my lover's heart for me."

"Let me tell you 'bout a place Somewhere up a New York way, Where the people are so gay, Twistin' the night away...Here they have a lot of fun, Puttin' trouble on the run. Man, you find the old and young, Twistin' the night away.They're twistin', twistin' Everybody's feelin' great. They're twistin', twistin' They're twistin' the night away."

"If you ever change your mind About leaving, leaving me behind Baby, bring it to me, bring your sweet lovin' Bring it on home to me Yeah (yeah) yeah (yeah) yeah (yeah)."

"At first I thought it was infatuation But woo, it's lasted so long. Now I find myself wanting To marry you and take you home. Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.You, you, you, you send me I know you send me I know you send me Honest you do."

"It's summertime and the living is easy Fish are jumping and the cotton is high Your daddy's rich and your mama's good-looking Hush, little baby don't you cry."

"Don't know much about history, Don't know much Biology. Don't know much about a science book, Don't know much about the French I took. But I do know that I love you, And I know that if you love me, too, What a wonderful world this would be."

"Oh my baby's coming home tomorrow Ain't that good news, man, ain't that news? Baby's coming home tomorrow Ain't that news, man, ain't that news?"

"Yeah, come on & let the good times roll We're gonna stay here till we soothe our souls. If it take all night long."

"Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody, I have some money 'cause I just got paid. How I wish I had someone to talk to, I'm in an awful way."

"I was born by the river In a little tent. And just like the river, I've been running ever since.It's been a long, long time coming But I know a change is gonna come. Oh, yes it is."

"The moon belongs to everyone The best things in life they're free Stars belong to everyone They cling there for you and for me."

"Shopping bugs me, for metaphorical reasons I'm sure, because in life as in shopping, you go in looking for one thing. There's one thing you really need, right? But then there's “Blue Light Specials”, you know, and you just get confused, you get distracted, that's all. It's human. You wind up with this armload of shiny junk. You know, and then you're checking out—I mean, checking out—and suddenly you remember, “Huh… there was that one thing I came in for. Oh no, I forgot—I just have this junk—oh no!” “Too late, you're in the express line!”"

"Is there anybody here but me who needs to know?"

"To me it was more about eight years of bad policy before (Obama) got there that let this happen. It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases. I think that has more to do with it than how the president reacted to it."

"I never used to miss the chance to climb up on his knee And listen to the many tales of life upon the sea. We'd go sailing back on Barkentines we'd talk of things he did Tomorrow just a day away, for the Captain and the kid."

"And now I wish I was somewhere other than here, Down in some honky tonk, sippin' on a beer. Yes, I wish I was somewhere other than here. 'Cause that great fillin' station holdup Cost me two good years."

"The Great Filling Station Holdup"

"He went to Paris, looking for answers To questions that bothered him so. He was impressive, young and aggressive, Saving the world on his own. But the warm Summer breezes, The French wines and cheeses Put his ambition at bay. And Summers and Winters Scattered like splinters, And four or five years slipped away."

"Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pilin's And drinks his green label each day, He's writing his memoirs and losing his hearing, But he don't care what most people say. Through eighty-six years of perpetual motion, If he likes you he'll smile then he'll say, Jimmy, some of it's magic, some of it's tragic, But I had a good life all the way."

"I really do appreciate the fact you're sittin' here. Your voice sounds so wonderful, But your face don't look too clear. So, Barmaid, bring a pitcher, another round of brew. Honey, why don't we get drunk and screw."

"I wish I had a pencil-thin mustache, the "Boston Blackie" kind. Or a two-toned Ricky Ricardo jacket, And an autographed picture of Andy Divine."

"Come Monday, it'll be all right. Come Monday, I'll be holding you tight. I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze And I just want you back by my side."

"Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call. Wanted to sail upon your waters Since I was three feet tall. You've seen it all, you've seen it all.Watched the men who rode you, Switch from sails to steam. And in your belly you hold the treasure That few have ever seen. Most of them dreams, Most of them dreams."

"Mother, mother ocean, after all these years I've found My occupational hazard being my occupations just not around. I feel like I've drowned, Gonna head uptown."

"These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, Nothing remains quite the same. Through all of the islands and all of the highlands, If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane."

"Wasted away again in Margaritaville, Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt. Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, But I know it's nobody's fault."

"I blew out my flip flop, Stepped on a pop top, Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home. But there's booze in the blender, And soon it will render That frozen concoction that helps me hang on."

"As the son of a son of a sailor, I went out on the sea for adventure. Expanding the view of the captain and crew Like a man just released from indenture."

"As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin' man, I have chalked up many a mile. Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks, And I've learned much from both of their styles."

"Son of a son, son of a son, son of a son of a sailor. Son of a gun; load the last ton, One step ahead of the jailer."

"Cheeseburger is paradise. Heaven on earth with an onion slice. Not too particular, not too precise. I'm just a cheeseburger in paradise.I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz Fifty-seven and French fried potatoes. Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer. Well, good God Almighty, which way do I steer? For my cheeseburger in paradise."

"We’ve gotta roll with the punches Learn to play all of our hunches. Makin’ the best of whatever comes your way. Forget that blind ambition And learn to trust your intuition. Plowin’ straight ahead come what may."

"Please don't say mañana if you don't mean it I have heard those words for so very long. Don't try to describe the ocean if you've never seen it. Don't ever forget that you just may wind up being wrong."

"Can't you feel 'em circlin' honey? Can't you feel 'em swimmin' around? You got fins to the left, fins to the right, And you're the only bait in town. You got fins to the left, fins to the right, And you're the only girl in town."

"Now, I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go When the volcano blow."

"Boat drinks. Waitress, I need two more boat drinks. Then I'm headin south 'fore my dream shrinks. I gotta go where it's warm."

"I'm growing older but not up. My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck. Let those winds of time blow over my head. I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead."

"I used to rule my world from a pay phone And ships out on the sea. But now times are rough And I got too much stuff; Can't explain the likes of me.But there's this one particular harbour, So far but yet so near. Where I see the days as they fade away, And finally disappear."

"We're gypsies in the palace, he's left us here alone. The order of the Sleepless Knights will now assume the throne. We ain't got no money, we ain't got no right, But we're gypsies in the palace, we got it all tonight."

"I went down to Captain Tony's to get out of the heat When I heard a voice call out to me, "Son, come have a seat." I had to search my memory as I looked into those eyes; Our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies"

"Enduring echoes call out from his past. Time ain't for saving, no time's not for that. Chasing false echoes like a lost legionnaire, He waltzes on memories while he fades like a flare."

"If I had a hammer, I'd build a city on stilts so my feet would stay dry when God's wine glass tilts. If I had a shovel, I'd dig a hole in the dirt and I'll be hiding when his drunken stupor lands upon earth"

"I think we're all a bunch of weirdos on a quest to belong. The songs are echolocation up in impregnable fog. That's why it's odd to see a pile of imperfections and flaws ascend a pedestal to patronize the rest of the cogs."

"Life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman, You only call her a bitch 'cause she won't let you get that pussy, Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests, Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet-talk the princess,"

"Not counting you I've never had a heartache. Not counting you I never have been blue. There's no exceptions to the rule; I've never been nobody's fool. I've never lost at love not counting you."

"If tomorrow never comes, Will she know how much I loved her? Did I try in every way to show her every day That she's my only one? And if my time on earth were through, And she must face the world without me, Is the love I gave her in the past Gonna be enough to last? If tomorrow never comes."

"And the white line's getting longer and the saddle's getting cold. I'm much too young to feel this damn old. All my cards are on the table with no ace left in the hole, I'm much too young to feel this damn old."

"The thunder rolls, And the lightnin' strikes. Another love grows cold On a sleepless night. As the storm blows on Out of control, Deep in her heart The thunder rolls."

"'Cause I've got friends in low places Where the whiskey drowns And the beer chases my blues away. And I'll be okay. I'm not big on social graces; Think I'll slip on down to the oasis. Oh, I've got friends in low places."

"Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers. Remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs, That just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care. Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

"Well it's bulls and blood, It's dust and mud, It's the roar of a Sunday crowd. It's the white in his knuckles, The gold in the buckle, He'll win the next go 'round. It's boots and chaps, It's cowboy hats, It's spurs and latigo. It's the ropes and the reins, And the joy and the pain, And they call the thing rodeo."

"'Cause what she's doin' now is tearin' me apart, Fillin' up my mind and emptyin' my heart. I can hear her call each time the cold wind blows, And I wonder if she knows...what she's doin' now."

"Mama was a looker, Lord, how she shined. Papa was a good'n, But the jealous kind. Papa loved Mama; Mama loved men. Mama's in the graveyard; Papa's in the pen."

"You know a dream is like a river, Ever changin' as it flows. And a dreamer's just a vessel That must follow where it goes. Trying to learn from what's behind you, And never knowing what's in store Makes each day a constant battle Just to stay between the shores...andI will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry. Like a bird upon the wind, These waters are my sky. I'll never reach my destination If I never try. So I will sail my vessel 'Til the river runs dry."

"When the last child cries for a crust of bread; When the last man dies for just words that he said; When there's shelter over the poorest head, We shall be free.When the last thing we notice is the color of skin, And the first thing we look for is the beauty within, When the skies and the oceans are clean again, Then we shall be free."

"Somewhere other than the night She needs to hear I love you. Somewhere other than the night She needs to know you care. She wants to know she's needed, She needs to be held tight Somewhere other than the night."

"She had a need to feel the thunder, To chase the lightning from the sky, To watch a storm with all its wonder Written in her lover's eyes. She had to ride the heat of passion Like a comet burning bright, Rushing headlong in the wind Now where only dreams have been, Burning both ends of the night."

"Standing outside the fire; Standing outside the fire. Life is not tried, it is merely survived If you're standing outside the fire."

"Ain't going down 'til the sun comes up; Ain't givin' in 'til they get enough. Going 'round the world in a pickup truck, Ain't goin' down 'til the sun comes up."

"Moonlight on canvas, midnight and wine, Two shadows starting to softly combine. The picture they're painting Is one of the heart; And to those who have seen it, It's a true work of art.Oh, the red strokes, Passions uncaged; Thundering moments of tenderness rage. Oh, the red strokes, Tempered and strong (Fearlessly drawn), Burning the night like the dawn."

"He asked her twice to come along; They said good-bye at the break of dawn. 'Cause you can't hold back the wind, If it's meant to be again, Then someday he'll find his way back to her arms."

"He was up in Wyoming, And drew a bull no man could ride. He promised her he'd turn out, Well it turned out that he lied. And their dreams that they'd been livin', In the California sand, Died right there beside him in Cheyenne."

"It's midnight Cinderella time that you should know, There's gonna be some changes in the way this story goes. It's midnight Cinderella but don't you worry none, 'Cause I'm Peter Peter the Pumpkin Eater And the party's just begun."

"She's anything but typical; She's so unpredictable. Oh but even at her worst it ain't that bad. She's as real as real can be And she's every fantasy. Lord she's every lover that I've ever had. And she's every lover that I've never had."

"After seven years of marriage, He wanted out. Now after seven months of freedom, It's clear that there's no doubt.She's gonna make it, And he never will. He's at the foot of the mountain, And she's over that hill. He's sinkin' at sea, And her sails are filled. She's gonna make it, And he never will."

"In another's eyes I'm afraid that I can't see This picture perfect portrait that they paint of me. They don't realize and I pray they never do, 'Cause every time I look I'm seein' you In another's eyes."

"And what they don't see, Is what is killing me. It's blessing and a curse That love is blind."

"For that river of red could be the death of me. God, give me strength and keep reminding me That blood is thicker than water. Oh, but love is thicker than blood.And if blood is thicker than water, Then what are we fighting for? We're all sons and daughters Of something that means so much more."

"On a prayer, In a song, I hear your voice, And it keeps me hanging on. Oh, raining down, against the wind, I'm reaching out, 'Till we reach the circle's end. When you come back to me again."

"[Brooks] is the blueprint for the modern country star. There is no Kenny Chesney, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean or Tim McGraw without Garth Brooks, who brought country music to stadiums. Brooks has sold more records than just about anyone and is most responsible for the genre’s mainstream boom."

"A lot of celebrities...shouldn't [talk politics]... They're pretty out of touch with the common person, the everyday guy out there providing for their family."

"I just fell into the acting thing as kind of an accident."

"I've been on my own for a number of years now, but I've also found myself very alone. My family looks at me differently now, and that's the hardest thing to deal with, because you want to go home and be the person that you used to be. Obviously, I'm 28 years old and I can't go home and just be my mum's little baby."

"It's all going to go sometime. You can't take it with you. I'm not saying you should wake up every day with sunshine streaming out of your head. If I could get one day a month, I would be very grateful. But I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I'm just figuring certain things out. It's taken me a while, and some things I could probably do without knowing."

"It's weird; I've been to prison, I've seen the worst sort of violence and negative shit in the streets, but when it comes to putting my heart on the line and letting somebody get to know me in a relationship, it's very difficult."

"It's easy to work with Mark. He doesn't complain, he shows up, does his job and he's easygoing. But the main reason I keep wanting him to get hired is he has some pictures of me with a farm animal! [Clooney's pet potbellied pig Max] I've had him for almost 14 years — my longest relationship to date."

"Well As for now I'm gonna hear the saddest songs And sit alone and wonder How you're making out But as for me, I wish that I was anywhere with anyone Making out."

"And the plaster dented from your fist in the hall where you had your first kiss reminds you that the memories will fade."

"Please tell me you're just feeling tired cause if it's more than that I feel that I might break"

"I'll be true, I'll be useful... I'll be cavalier...I'll be yours my dear. and I'll belong to you... if you'll just let me through. this is easy as lovers go, so don't complicate it by hesitating. and this is wonderful as loving goes, this is tailor-made, whats the sense in waiting?"

"Do you, do you like dreaming of things so impossible or only the practical or ever the wild or waiting through all your bad bad days just to end them with someone you care about and do you like making out and long drives and brown eyes and guys that just don't quite fit in"

"And breath, deeply from this envelope, it smells like you, and I, cant be, without that scent, its filling me, with all you mean to me"

"Cause now that I can see you, I don't think you're worth a second glance. So much for all the promises you made, they served you well and now you're gone and they're wasted on me. So much for your endearing sense of charm, it served you well and now it's gone and you're wasted on me."

"How the girls could turn to ghosts before your eyes And the very dreams that led to them are keeping them from dying And how the grace with which she walked into your life Will stay with you in your steps, And pace with you a while So long, so long."

"Walking away, it's not the same as running, is it to you now, that you've run this in the ground?"

"Today I started loving you again I'm right back where I've really always been; I got over you just long enough to let my heartache mend, Then today I started loving you again."

"Every fool has a rainbow But he never seems to find The reward that should be waiting At the end of the line. But he'll give up a bed of roses For a hammock filled with thorns And go chasing after rainbows Every time a dream is born. And every fool has a rainbow That only he can see Every fool has a rainbow And the rule applies to me."

"We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee We don’t take our trips on LSD We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street We like living right and being free."

"I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, A place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse, And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all."

"I've lived through 17 stays in penal institutions. Incarceration in a penitentiary. Five marriages, a bankruptcy, a broken back, brawls, shooting incidents, swindlings, sickness, the death of loved ones and more. I've heard tens of thousands chant my name when I couldn't hear the voice of my own soul. I wondered if God was listening and I was sure no one else was."

"When the world wide war is over and done And the dream of peace comes through We'll all be drinking some free bubble up And eating some rainbow stew."

"One of these days when the air clears up And the sun come shining through We'll all be drinking free bubble up And eating some rainbow stew."

"Look at the past 25 years — we went downhill, and if people don't realize it, they don't have their fucking eyes on. In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available to an average citizen in America right now. I mean, there was nobody going to throw you down on the side of the road spread-eagled, and look up your butt for a fucking marijuana cigarette. God almighty, what have we done to each other?"

"I had different views in the '70s. As a human being, I've learned… I have more culture now. I was dumb as a rock when I wrote 'Okie from Muskogee'. That's being honest with you at the moment, and a lot of things that I said … I sing with a different intention now. My views on marijuana have totally changed. I think we were brainwashed and I think anybody that doesn't know that needs to get up and read and look around, get their own information. It's a cooperative government project to make us think marijuana should be outlawed."

"He cultivated an appreciation of musicians that seemed more appropriate to a jazz bandleader. … Even more arresting than the band was Haggard’s phrasing, which contradicted almost every precedent. Clear-toned, sinuous and shockingly free of twang and vocal affectation, Haggard sang with a sensitivity that bordered on tenderness. … Haggard has long referred to his music as “country jazz,” and is the only country musician to have appeared on the cover of Down Beat, the definitive jazz publication. Over the years, he has developed a definition of the term that reflects his nostalgia for a moment in history that preceded genres, when figures like Emmett Miller, Milton Brown and Django Reinhardt seemed to draw out of the air a music that defied classification. “I realized that jazz meant that you could play anything,” says Haggard. “It meant that you were a full-fledged musician, that you could play with Louis Armstrong or Johnny Cash.”"

"Fellow Bakersfield sound pioneer and ’70s-era Outlaw country co-founder Merle Haggard scored an astonishing 34 No. 1 hit singles, from “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” [in 1966] to “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star” [in 1987]. Like Owens, Haggard played with a loud, bright and twangy Telecaster tone and was backed up in the Strangers by an exceedingly adept pair of Telecaster masters (Roy Nichols and, later, Redd Volkaert)."

"Aside from Johnny Cash, Haggard is probably the name that most comes up when naming the greatest country singers of all time. Haggard is certainly one of the most celebrated artists ever and one of the most diverse songwriters, laying the country blueprints for love songs, storytelling and social anthems."

"Maybe baby I'll have you, Maybe baby you'll be true. Maybe baby I'll have you for me. (All for me)It's funny honey you don't care-a-are, You never listen to my prayer-a-yer, Maybe baby you will love me someday (someday)."

"It's so easy to fall in love — it's so easy to fall in love. People tell me love is for fools, So here I go breaking all of the rules."

"Sometimes we'll sigh — sometimes we'll cry And we'll know why just you and I know true love ways."

"You recall a girl that's been in nearly every song? This is what I heard of course the story could be wrong.She's the one — I've been told Now she's wearing a band of gold. Peggy Sue got married not long ago."

"Crying, waiting, hoping, that you'll come back. I just can't seem to get you off my mind. Crying, waiting, hoping, that you'll come back. You're the one I love and I think about you all the time."

"All of my love — all of my kissin’ You don’t know what you’ve been a-missin’ Oh boy — when you’re with me — oh boy The world will see that you were meant for me"

"I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be, You're gonna give your love to me. I wanna love you night and day, You know my love a-not fade away. A-well, you know my love a-not fade away."

"That'll be the day — when you say goodbye. That'll be the day — when you make me cry. You say you're gonna leave — you know it's a lie, 'cause That'll be the day when I die."

"If you knew Peggy Sue — then you'd know why I feel blue Without Peggy — my Peggy Sue. Oh well, I love you gal — yes, I love you Peggy Sue.Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue — oh how my heart yearns for you. Oh Peggy — my Peggy Sue. Oh well, I love you gal — yes, I love you Peggy Sue."

"Everyday — it's a gettin' closer, Goin' faster than a roller coaster. Love like yours will surely come my way A hey — a hey hey."

"Hold me close and tell me how you feel Tell me love is real."

"Words of love you whisper soft and true Darling I love you."

"I just want to say that one time when I was about sixteen or seventeen years old, I went to see Buddy Holly play … at a Duluth National Guard Armory and I was three feet away from him. … And he LOOKED at me. And I just have some kind of feeling that he was — I don't know how or why — but I know he was with us all the time when we were making this record in some kind of way."

"A long long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile And I knew if I had my chance That I could make those people dance And maybe they'd be happy for a while. But February made me shiver With every paper I'd deliver Bad news on the doorstep I couldn't take one more step I can't remember if I cried When I read about his widowed bride But something touched me deep inside The Day the Music Died."

"Conspiracy theorists might have it otherwise, but any mystery relating to Buddy Holly's death has nothing to do with the plane crash. Far more intriguing is why the six marvellous songs he wrote shortly before he was killed should be among the most angst–ridden in the entire canon of rock. … Whatever the reason, Holly's last compositions were a wonderful achievement. Heard as he recorded them, without the overdubs, his voice is crystal clear yet raw with emotion. Close your eyes and, 50 years later, Buddy Holly is singing directly to you from across the room."

"Buddy Holly and the Crickets had the most influence on the Beatles."

"What is this thing called love? This funny thing called love? Just who can solve this mystery? Why should it make a fool of me?"

"If you want to buy my wares Follow me and climb the stairs … Love for sale."

"There's an, oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me."

"Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above. Don't fence me in. Let me ride through the wide open country that I love Don't fence me in Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees Send me off forever but I ask you please Don't fence me in"

"I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences Don't fence me in"

"What moments divine, what rapture serene."

"Some Argentines, without means, do it, People say, in Boston, even beans do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"The chimpanzees in the zoos do it, Some courageous kangaroos do it Let's do it, let's fall in love. I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it, Even eagles as they fly do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"In shallow shoals, English soles do it Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it."

"Electric eels I might add do it, Though it shocks 'em I know..."

"The world admits bears in pits do it, Even Pekingeses at the Ritz do it, Let's do it, let's fall in love."

"If you want a future, darling, Why don't you get a past?"

"They say that spring Means just one thing To little lovebirds. We're not above birds, Let's misbehave."

"They say that bears Have love affairs And even camels, We're merely mammals Let's misbehave."

"I get no kick from champagne. Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all, So tell me why it should be true That I get a kick out of you?"

"Some get a kick from cocaine. I'm sure that if I took even one sniff That would bore me terrifically, too, Yet, I get a kick out of you."

"You're the smile On the Mona Lisa."

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking Was looked on as something shocking But now, Heaven knows, Anything goes."

"Good authors, too, who once knew better words Now only use four-letter words Writing prose — Anything goes."

"Too bad, I'm no poet, I happen to know it, But anyway Here's a roundelay I wrote last night about you..."

"You are my fav'rite star, My haven in heaven above, You are ev'rything I love."

"Sad times May follow your tracks, Bad times May bar you from Saks, Add times When Satan in slacks Breaks down your self control..."

"This rule I propose, Always have an ace in the hole. Always try to arrive at Having an ace some place private. Always have an ace in the hole."

"You're the pain in my — The hurricane in my — Supersensitive heart, dear. Still I love you, I know, And the reason is merely because You irritate me so!"

"Relax for a moment my Jerry Come out of your dark monastery While Venus is beaming above. Darling, let's talk about love."

"You'd be so nice to come home to You'd be so nice by the fire..."

"You'd be so nice, You'd be paradise To come home to and love."

"It must be fun to be you And play with love as you do To treat each new romance As merely one more dance Or just another book to glance through It must be fun to acquire Whatever heart you desire, And when you're bored with it To tear it in two, It must be fun to be you."

"Be a clown, be a clown, All the world loves a clown. Act the fool, play the calf, And you'll always have the last laugh."

"Wear the cap and the bells And you'll rate all the great swells. If you become a doctor, folks'll face you with dread. If you become a dentist, they'll be glad when you're dead. You get a bigger hand if you can stand on your head. Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown."

"Be the poor silly ass And you'll always travel first class. Give 'em quips, give 'em fun, And they'll pay to say you're A–1. If you become a farmer, you've the weather to buck. If become a gambler you'll be struck with your luck. But jack you'll never lack if you can quack like a duck. Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown."

"So kiss me Kate, Thou lovely loon, E'er we start on our honeymoon. Oh, kiss me, Kate, Darling devil divine, For now thou shall ever be mine."

"In a way no other songs of the period quite did, Porter's created a world. It was a between–the–wars realm of drop–dead chic and careless name–dropping insouciance. And it was a sexy place to be invited."

"The wit of his words depended on his ability to raise the audience immediately to his own level — and keep it there. The instant happiness that Porter gave his audience is the kind that becomes history."

"Yeah. Cole Porter, but he was taken."

"Last night I was east with them And west within Trying to be for you what you wanna see."

"I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see."

"Would you look at me I'm crazy But I get the job done Yeah, I'm crazy but I get the job done."

"Now that I have found someone I'm feeling more alone Than I ever have before."

"All this breathing in Never breathing out."

"So much time and so little to say.."

"You have made me smile again In fact, I might be sore from it. It's been a while I know we've been together many times before I'll see you on the other side."

"Who knows why some satellites come by and by while others disappear into the sky."

"This morning I wake to be older than you were Fresh white snow for miles Every footstep will be mine."

"I don't get Many things right the first time In fact, I am told that a lot Now I know all the wrong turns And stumbles and falls Brought me here."

"Good morning, son In twenty years from now Maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers And I can tell you 'bout today And how I picked you up and everything changed."

"You nodded off in my arms watching tv I won’t move you an inch Even though my arm’s asleep."

"Why you gotta act like you know, if you don't know? It's okay if you don't know everything."

"I refuse to rot like my contemporaries I want to explode in a karaoke supernova I don't wanna grow old Won't you let me, won't you let me explode?"

"There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you While the world is watching All you need is the thing you forgotten And that's to learn to live with what you are."

"When you don't care then You've got nothing to lose And I won't hesitate Because every moment life is slipping away It's okay."

"I stay focused on details It keeps me from feeling the big things But watch the microscope long enough Things that seem still are still changing"

"Notes don't make music until you learn to insert silence between them."

"Oh I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee, I'm going to Louisiana, my true love for to see It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry The sun so hot I froze to death; Susanna, don't you cry. Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me For I come from Alabama, With my banjo on my knee."

"Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay, Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away, Gone from the earth to a better land I know, I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe.""

"Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me, Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee; Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away."

"The head must bow, and the back will have to bend, Wherever the darkey may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load,— No matter, 't will never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road:— Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

"The day goes by like a shadow o’er the heart, With sorrow where all was delight; The time has come when the darkies have to part: Then my old Kentucky home, good night!"

"Sadly I roam, Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home."

"All up and down the whole creation, Sadly I roam, Still longing for the old plantation, And for the old folks at home."

"All the world is sad and dreary, Everywhere I roam."

"Today I would choose Stephen Foster as an underrated composer. His music has been played so often that it is easy to forget how powerful, poignant and uniquely American it is."

"You've made my life so glamorous, You can't blame me for feeling amorous. 'S wonderful, 's marvellous That you should care for me."

"I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man Who could ask for anything more?"

"Summertime and the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high. Oh yo' daddy's rich, and yo' ma is good lookin', So hush, little baby, don' yo' cry."

"It ain't necessarily so, It ain't necessarily so. De t'ings dat yo' li'ble To read in de Bible, It ain't necessarily so."

"Nice work if you can get it, And you can get it if you try."

"You like potato and I like po-tah-to, You like tomato and I like to-mah-to; Potato, po-tah-to, tomato, to-mah-to – Let's call the whole thing off!"

"They all laughed at Christopher Columbus When he said the world was round; They all laughed when Edison recorded sound."

"The way you wear your hat, The way you sip your tea, The mem'ry of all that – No, no! They can't take that away from me!"

"In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, They're only made of clay, But our love is here to stay."

"Poor Jenny, bright as a penny! Her equal would be hard to find. She lost one dad and mother, A sister and a brother-- But she would make up her mind."

"Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?"

"Once I built a tower up to the sun Brick and rivet and lime Once I built a tower, now it's done Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

"I never knew the charm of spring Never met it face to face I never knew my heart could sing Never missed a warm embrace 'Til April in Paris. Whom can I run to? What have you done to My heart?"

"Say, its only a paper moon Sailing over a cardboard sea But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me."

"Without your love It's a honky-tonk parade Without your love It's a melody played in a penny arcade. It's a Barnum and Bailey world Just as phony as it can be But it wouldn't be make-believe If you believed in me."

"Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high There's a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow Skies are blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true."

"Some day I'll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far behind me Where troubles melt like lemondrops Away above the chimney tops, That's where you'll find me. Somewhere over the rainbow Bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow, Why then, oh why can't I?"

"Follow the yellow brick road."

"We're off to see the Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. You'll find he is a whiz of a Wiz! If ever a Wiz! there was."

"You’re out of the woods You’re out of the dark You’re out of the night Step into the sun, step into the light, Keep straight ahead For the most glorious place On the Face of the Earth Or the sky. Hold onto your breath Hold onto your heart Hold onto your hope, March up to the gate And bid it open."

"To let a fool kiss you is stupid, To let a kiss fool you is worse."

"Life is short, short, brother! Ain't it the truth? And there is no other Ain't it the truth? You gotta rock that rainbow while you still got your youth! Oh! Ain't it the solid truth?"

"On the day I was born, Said my father, said he I've an elegant legacy waiting for ye. Tis a rhyme for your lips And a song for your heart To sing it whenever the world falls apart. Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow it over the hill and stream Look, look, look to the rainbow Follow the fellow who follows a dream."

"How are things in Glocca Morra? Is that little brook still leaping there? Does it still run down to Donny cove? Through Killybegs, Kilkerry and Kildare?"

"So I ask each weepin' willow And each brook along the way, And each lad that comes a-whistlin' Tooralay How are things in Glocca Morra This fine day?"

"The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ‘em both a little bit naive."

"When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near."

"When the idle poor Become the idle rich You'll never know just who is who or who is which."

"As the writer of the lyric of the song ‘God’s Country’, I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy."

"No matter how high or great the throne, What sits on it is the same as your own."

"WHERE and WHEN Are lost in space. THERE and THEN Do not embrace. So before we disappear Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE."

"Lives of great men all remind us greatness takes no easy way. All the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today. Socrates and Galileo, John Brown, Thoreau, Christ, and Debs Heard the night cry down with traitors, and the dawn shout "Up the reds!""

"I am a rebel by birth. … I contest anything that is unjust, that causes suffering in humanity. My feelings about that are so strong, I don't think I could live with myself if I weren't honest."

"I am one of the last of a small tribe of troubadours, who still believe that life is a beautiful and exciting journey with a purpose and grace which are well worth singing about."

"No matter how much I probe and prod, I cannot quite believe in God; But oh, I hope to God that He Unswervingly believes in me."

"And only God who makes the tree Also makes the fools like me. But only fools like me, you see, Can make a God, who makes a tree."

"My heart is like the willow That bends, but never breaks. It sighs when summer jilts her, It sings when April wakes. So you, who come a-smiling With summer in your eyes, Think not that your beguiling Will take me by surprise. My heart's prepared for aching The moment you take wing. But not, my friend, for breaking While there's another spring."

"The first thing we’re looking at here is an expression really of Yip’s philosophy and background, which he brings to writing lyrics for the songs. And what it says here is that songs have always been man’s anodyne against tyranny and terror. The artist is on the side of Humanity."

"I'm very articulate when I wanna be. You wanna talk to me?"

"Crazier things have happened on the road."

"I don't like to practice; I like spontaneity. When I don't play guitar for a week and I pick it up again, I play better."

"My country, ’t is of thee, Sweet land of liberty Of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From every mountain-side Let freedom ring."

"Our fathers’ God, to thee, Author of liberty, To thee I sing; Long may our land be bright With freedom’s holy light; Protect us by thy might, Great God, our King!"

"If you cannot be great, be willing to serve God in that which is small. If you cannot do great things for Him, cheerfully do little ones. If you cannot be an Aaron to serve at the altar, or a Moses to guide the tribes, consent to be "a little maid" to Naaman the Syrian, for the honor of God's prophets, or a little child, for Christ's sake, to be set by Him in the midst of the people, as an illustration of the sweetness of humility."

"Sparkling and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in; With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. Then fill to-night, with hearts as light To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker’s brim And break on the lips while meeting."

"The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up."

"I frequently hear music in the heart of noise."

"My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times."

"The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel."

"Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music."

"Modern European composers ... have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly."

"Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas."

"A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation."

"When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America."

"An entire composition written in jazz could not live."

"I like to think of music as an emotional science."

"While the doctors were sawing away at Ira's midriff, I submitted a variety of ideas to George. One of the most successful was the title of the best song in the show, "Someone to Watch Over Me." I wrote and was credited with two songs: "Oh, Kay" and "Heaven On Earth." I wrote the verse for the spiritual number "Clap Yo' Hands" and a lyric called "That Certain Something You've Got," but Ira changed the lyrics and called it "Oh, Kay, You're O.K. with Me." It was the title song of the show and the least distinguished. Ira made me a present of the credit for it. It was the opposite of plagiarism; we call it donorism. George, realizing that any sum he paid me would have to come out of Ira's royalties, paid me next to nothing. It was decided that I was to get 1¢ for every copy of sheet music that was sold. When Ira sent me my first paycheck it was for 96¢. Some time shortly thereafter, Ira wrote asking if I minded canceling the arrangement which involved a lot of bookkeeping for such small sums. I said no, I didn't mind. I was proud to work with the great Gershwin. I would've done it for nothing, which I did."

"There is no better way to spend an evening than listening to George Gershwin at the piano. Fortunately for his audience, he seldom was away from it. He played his own tunes to Ira's special lyrics and though his voice was pure gravel it was special entertainment."

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy."

"When Sam Harris was preparing a Chicago company of Of Thee I Sing after it won the Pulitzer Prize, George, Ira, Harris and I were on the train to attend the opening. I thought it would be fun to ask Harris, with George sitting there, who his favorite composer was. Without hesitation Harris answered, "George Cohan," and began to sing Cohan songs and tell Cohan stories. George wasn't irritated at all, as anyone else might have been; he was just amused."

"He never raised his voice. When he asked for something, it was usually in an apologetic tone. I know he had this reputation for being brash, but that was just the way his music was. His death was a tragedy. When we were on tour, many times he would complain that he smelled garbage. Today, physicians will tell you that's a clue that you might have a brain tumor, but back then nobody knew. He often would be fighting depression, and when he went out on tour, it wasn't to make money. The whole point was to go out and get some quick adulation to boost himself up."

"Well, if I were thus rationed in this article and could have but one adjective for George Gershwin, that adjective would be "ingenuous." Ingenuous at and about his piano. Once an occasional composer named Oscar Levant stood beside that piano while those sure, sinewy, catlike Gershwin fingers beat their brilliant drum-fire—the tumultuous cascade of the "Rhapsody In Blue," the amorous languor of "The Man I Love," the impish glee of "Fascinating Rhythm," the fine, jaunty, dust-spurning scorn of "Strike Up the Band." If the performer was familiar with the work of any other composer, he gave no evidence of it. Levant (who, by the way, makes a fleeting appearance in the new Dashlell Hammett book, under the guise of Levi Oscant) could be heard mutterIng under his breath, "An evening with Gershwin Is a Gershwln evening." "I wonder," said our young composer dreamily, "if my music will be played a hundred years from now." "It certainly will be," said the bitter Levant,"if you are still around.""

"The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together – with a thin paste of flour and water… I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky…but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter."

"Gershwin's tragedy was not that he failed to cross the tracks, but rather that he did, and once there in his new habitat, was deprived of the chance to plunge his roots firmly into the new soil."

"If jazz should threaten to become a hampering stereotype, a "tradition" in its turn, George would go forward to the next fresh impulse that arose in him. You may call him the King of jazz and associate his name with the lifting of jazz into musical artistry. Very well, and his best thanks. But not on that account is he to be thrust into a pigeonhole. George Gershwin did not begin as a jazzer; he will not end as one."

"Gershwin's melodic gift was phenomenal. His songs contain the essence of New York in the 1920s and have deservedly become classics of their kind, part of the 20th-century folk-song tradition in the sense that they are popular music which has been spread by oral tradition (for many must have sung a Gershwin song without having any idea who wrote it)."

"[I]t's only good songs that last, not good rhythm, and in the first six years or so of his composing George was interested mainly in developing new rhythms."

"George died on July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe that if I don't want to."

"Porgy is…an interesting example of what can be done by talent in spite of a bad setup. With a libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen, a man who should never have attempted it has written a work that has a considerable power."

"I knew there was never anyone to blame when people get into drugs. They're always responsible for their own behavior, and it's not the dealer, and it's not the friend, it's not the childhood. (Scar Tissue, 2004)."

"When I do think, "Man a fucking motel room with a couple of thousand dollars' worth of narcotics would do me right," I just look over at my dog and remember that Buster's never seen me high. (Scar Tissue, 2004)."

"Changing and inventing new things is great. That's what we like to do. (Australia, 2002)."

"I never really had the intention of being a rock 'n' roller. It's just that all of my best friends were great musicians and they felt sorry for me so they had me. (Much Music 1991)."

"The existence of sexual energy is such an every-day part of life. It's such a natural aspect of life. That we end up relating to without any shame. (Much Music 1991)."

"There were times when all Hillel and I had was each other. We were fucked up and understood what it was to be living in an out-of-control fog. (Scar Tissue, 2004)."

"Music that I really love and believe in and think is extraordinarily honest and beautiful doesn't always become popular. (Oct, 1994 interview)."

"The fact that I was a junkie for a long time is only one slice of my own personal pie, which is made up of a lot of different slices.(Oct, 1994 interview)."

"You know I love pot, and I love beer, but I am totally sober, just because it completely stopped working for me. (Interview Magazine 2000)."

"All you slingers and fiends hide behind your rocks put down your guard I'm not here to box this is no showdown so throw down your gun you see it doesn't matter where you come from."

"I'm the bloodstain On your shirt sleeve Coming down and more are coming to believe Now we know it all for sure."

"How long, How long? Will I slide? Separate my side? I don't believe it's bad Slit my throat it's all I ever had"

"Under the bridge downtown Is where I drew some blood Under the bridge downtown I could not get enough Under the bridge downtown Forgot about my love Under the bridge downtown I gave my life away"

"Bob Marley poet and a prophet Bob Marley taught me how to off it Bob Marley walkin' like he talk it Goodness me Can't you see I'm gonna cough it."

"My tendency for dependency Is offending me It's upending me I'm pretending see To be strong and free"

"First born unicorn Hardcore soft porn"

"Desecration is the smile on my face."

"Anthony's made a kind-of progress spiritually and inwardly, that you just don't see with rock-stars nowadays. He's gotten so much better as a singer, as a lyricist and as a human being."

"There's a place for us, Somewhere a place for us Peace and quiet and open air wait for us, Somewhere. There's a time for us, Some day a time for us Time together with time to spare, time to look, time to care, Someday. Somewhere we'll find a new way of living. We'll find a way of forgiving, Somewhere.'"

"I'm a lazy writer. My idea of heaven is not writing. On the other hand, I'm obviously compulsive about it."

"Plays also, but musicals particularly—the last collaborator is your audience. So you got to wait until the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration. And when the audience comes in, it changes the temperature of what you've written. And things that seem to work well, work in the sense of carry the story forward and be integral to the piece, suddenly become a little less relevant or a little less functional, or a little overlong, or a little overweight, or a little whatever. And so you start reshaping in front of an audience."

"Without question, Steve is the best Broadway lyricist, past or present."

"If you become a teacher, by your pupils you'll be taught."

"I hand him a lyric and get out of his way."

"He's a meticulously hard worker and yet he'll roam the grass of his farm for hours and sometimes for days before he can bring himself to put a word on paper."

"I beg your pardon. My husband wrote "Ol' Man River." Jerome Kern wrote "da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da.""

":Polly Vernon:: Do you miss Britney?"

":Justin Timberlake:: Umm, yeah, you know, days will go by when I miss... I miss the good things, I miss the good things. I'll leave it at that. Britney has always surprised me."

":Polly Vernon:: With what? Her honesty?"

":Justin Timberlake:: Ha! No, no, no, not with that. I think, the size of her heart. She has a big heart, a really big heart. That's always impressed me about her."

"How famous am I? No more famous than you.' Well, no, you are considerably more famous than I am. 'Says who? Fuck it. Kelly Osbourne's more famous than me."

"The vilest offender who truly believes, That moment from Jesus a pardon receives."

"“Give,” said the little stream, “Give, oh give, give, oh give,” As it hurried down the hill. “I am small, I know, but wherever I go The fields grow greener still.”"

"On! ye patriots to the battle. Hear Fort Moultrie's canon rattle. Then away, then away, then away to the fight! Go meet those Southern Traitors with iron will and should your courage falter boys, remember Bunker Hill. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! The stars and stripes forever! Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Union shall not sever! As our fathers crushed oppression deal with those who breathe Secession. Then away, then away, then away to the fight. Though Beauregard and Wigfall. Their swords may whet. Just tell them Major Anderson. Has not surrendered yet. Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Union shall not sever! Is Virginia, too, seceeding? Washington's remains unheeding? Then away, then away, then away to the fight. Unfold our country's banner. In triumph there and let the rebels desecrate that banner if they dare. Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Union shall not sever! Volunteers, be up and doing. Still the good old path pursuing. Then away, then away, then away to the fight. Your sires, who fought before you have led the way. Then follow in their footsteps and be as brave as they. Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Union shall not sever! On! ye patriots to the battle. Hear Fort Moultrie's cannon rattle then away, then away, then away to the fight. The star that lights our Union shall never set! Though fierce may be the conflict we'll gain the victory yet. Hurrah! Hurrah! Our Union shall not sever!"

"I love you, A bushel and a peck, A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck. Hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap, Barrel and a heap and I'm talking in my sleep."

"I'd love to get you on a slow boat to China, All to myself, alone. Get you and keep you in my arms evermore, Leave all your lovers weeping on the far away shore."

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition And we'll all stay free. Praise the Lord and swing into position Can't afford to sit around a-wishin' Praise the Lord, we're all between perdition And the deep blue sea."

"I've got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle, As I go riding merrily along. And they sing, "Oh, ain't you glad you're single?" And that song ain't so very far from wrong."

"The producer orders a certain title. The musical director orders a certain rhythm. The dance director orders a certain number of bars. And the composer orders a certain number... of aspirin. [on working in Hollywood]"

"No, they've got no time for glory in the Infantry. No, they've got no use for praises loudly sung, But in every soldier's heart in all the Infantry Shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young."

"On the island of New Georgia in the Solomons, Stands a simple wooden cross alone to tell That beneath the silent coral of the Solomons, Sleeps a man, sleeps a man remembered well."

"Hail, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom’s cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won. Let independence be our boast, Ever mindful what it cost; Ever grateful for the prize, Let its altar reach the skies!"

"You're mean to me Why must you be mean to me? Gee, honey, it seems to me You love to see me cryin'"

"Are you lonesome tonight, Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart? Does your memory stray to a brighter sunny day When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?"

"I'll get by As long as I Have you Though there be rain And darkness too I'll not complain I'll see it through"

"I don't know why I love you like I do I don't know why, but I do."

"We stop for a while, she gives me a smile And snuggles her head on my chest We start in to pet and that's when I get Her talcum all over my vest After I kinda straighten my tie She has to borrow my comb Once kiss then I continue again Walkin' my baby back home"

"Where the blue of the night Meets the gold of the day, Someone waits for me. And the gold of her hair crowns the blue of her eyes like a halo tenderly."

"You sittin' here chained to your rockin' chair."

"It's the story of a very unfortunate colored man Who got arrested down in Old Hong Kong He got twenty years' privilege taken away from him When he kicked old Buddha's gong."

"I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin’ Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues"

"I was writing the 'Great American Novel' and Dick was writing the 'Great American Symphony'. Together we were digging the 'Great American Hole-In-The-Ground'."

"It took us ten years to become an overnight success."

"Hip Hop is prosecution evidence/ The out of court settlement/ Ad space for liquor"

"Restlessness is my nemesis/ It's hard to just chill and sit still"

"Hip-Hop went from selling crack to smoking it"

"Young bloods can't spell but they can rock you in Playstation"

"Universal ghetto life, holla black you know it well"

"Peace before everything, God before anything / Love before anything, real before everything / Home before anyplace, truth before anything / Style and stay radiate, love power slay the hate"

"Flow greatest like the greatest lakes / Capes on great estates, quiet water major waves"

"Reservations, exclusive arrangements / Dinner with the patrons, the scenery is amazing / It's so outrageous, they whisper when they say it / When it's really real it's even realer than "The Matrix""

"Steer the course, make a way / And come ashore on a greater day"

"If April showers Should come your way, They bring the flowers That bloom in May."

"The moon belongs to everyone; The best things in life are free. The stars belong to everyone; They gleam there for you and me."

"If you knew Susie like I know Susie, Oh, oh, oh what a girl! There's none so classy as this fair lassie, Oh, oh, Holy Moses, what a chassis!"

"You're sent from heaven And I know your worth. You made a heaven for me here on the earth. When I'm old and grey, dear, Promise you won't stray, dear, For I love you so, Sonny Boy."

"We've only just begun to live, White lace and promises A kiss for luck and we're on our way."

"Before the rising sun we fly, So many roads to choose We start out walking and learn to run."

"Sharing horizons that are new to us, Watching the signs along the way, Talking it over just the two of us, Working together day to day Together."

"So much of life ahead We'll find a place where there's room to grow, And yes, we've just begun."

"Why are there so many songs about rainbows And what's on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, And rainbows have nothing to hide. So we've been told and some choose to believe it I know they're wrong, wait and see. Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection, The lovers, the dreamers and me."

"Our love is an old love, baby. It's older than all our years. I have seen in strange young eyes Familiar tears."

"We're old souls in a new life baby. They gave us a new life To live and learn."

"Our paths have crossed and parted, This love affair was started Long, long ago. This love survives the ages In its story lives are pages Fill them up, may ours turn slow."

"Our love is a strong love, baby. We give it all And still receive."

"All souls last forever So we need never fear goodbye."

"In time, we kiss — hello!"

"The best part of being a songwriter — beyond being able to make a living at it — is what I call the "heart payment" of a song. That's when somebody comes up after a concert and says, "My mom was a single mom, and 'You And Me Against The World' was a really important song to us." Or "We got married to 'We've Only Just Begun'" or 'Evergreen.' Or "'I Won't Last A Day Without You' got me through some hard times.'" That's heart payment for a songwriter."

"I think the trick for any songwriter is authenticity. For the young songwriter coming up who is connected to his generation, as I was connected to mine, write honestly about what's going on in the center of your life. You know, when "We've Only Just Begun" was a Number 1 record, I think the Number 1 album in the country was "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." So it was as far away from what was happening in the music scene as you can get. And yet it was a hit. I think it was a hit because of, obviously, Karen's amazing vocal, but I think that any time we write authentically and honestly about what's going on in the center of our chest, because people are so much alike, there's a big a chance that it's going on in the center of your chest, too."

"Relating to the specifics of relationships, and writing love songs, I tapped into something that seemed to work for my generation. I love the fact that some of the songs continue to survive, but I think that there's a window of opportunity for a time when you really, really relate to your generation. And I think a lot of us pass through that as songwriters."

"If I was a better poet like William Carlos Williams I’d be able to write about anything, but I’m just a minor poet. So I just write about things like moments of crisis that tend to be on the sadder, darker side. You can spend ten minutes in a really dark place and write a song about it that lasts forever."

"There are no angels there are devils in many ways"

"Crowded fifty to a room, There's too many rats in this cage of the world, And the women know their place, They sit home and write letters, And when they visit once a year, Well they both just sit there and stare, Gotta keep bars in between us, See how we are"

"The life I lead is mighty slim pickens, there ain't much call for stompin' on chickens"

"Climbing uphill, one dollar bill, this town is far."

"I'll break down a lesson Step by step Like a booklet for you to sweat And try to apply To make yourself fly"

"I make beats like surgeons resume To stitch up your wounds Inside the emergency room They must work urgently or you'll permanently be in a tomb You see in the clergy soon I enjoy physical intimacy with young men"

"I've got tears in my ears from lyin' on my back In my bed while I cry over you. And the tears in my ears, they're off the beaten track Since you said "It's goodbye, we are through"."

"Catch a falling star an’ put it in your pocket, Never let it fade away! Catch a falling star an’ put it in your pocket, Save it for a rainy day! For love may come an' tap you on the shoulder, Some starless night!"

"One and two and three and four, Tell them what the girlie wore. It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini That she wore for the first time today, An itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini So in the locker she wanted to stay"

"Your lips are thrilling My arms are willing I know that I shouldn't stay. If I don't leave I'll be sorry What will my Mary say?"

"My folks were always putting her down (down, down) Because her laundry came back brown (brown, brown) I don't care if they think she's bad I fell in love cuz she looked so sad I got a date tonight with the Leader Of the Laundromat ."

"Tracy, when I'm with you Somethin' you do Bounces me off the ceiling Tracy, day after day When you're this way I get a lovin' feelin'."

"When this old world gets me down and there's no love to be found I close my eyes and soon I find I'm in a playground in my mind Where the children laugh and the children play And we sing a song all day."

"Meet me by the fishin' hole and wear your leather britches. Tell your ma and pa everything's all right. We're really goin' fishin' next Saturday night."

"You're a little honey and you're quite a dish. Saturday night we're goin' fishin' to fish."

"Now, I'm Sick, Sober and Sorry Broke, disgusted and sad Sick, Sober and Sorry But look at the fun that I had."

"'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there 's no place like home; A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which sought through the world is ne'er met with elsewhere."

"An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain, Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again; The birds singing gayly, that came at my call, Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all."

"I had the naive, simplistic idea that producers and writers and artists of the time helped in a minuscule way to change the mind-set of America."

"The songwriting style, to me, is superior... there was a certain amount of joy in it, no matter how sad the song is. You get joy in listening to these Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison sad lyrics. I'm attracted to songs that have balance between the darks and the lights and giving them all equal opportunity."

"I treat the act of making a record very much like working in a laboratory, experimenting with sounds and ideas... Whoever chooses to latch onto it, great; whoever doesn't, that's fine, too. The reaction always pales in comparison to the weight of the act of production."

"When you're absolute beginners, It's a panoramic view, From Her Majesty, Mt. Zion, And the Kingdom is for you."

"For people like us it is necessary to be a bit stronger, more self-critical, more observant than the usual run. Whether we happen to come already enhanced with these qualities, as some have claimed, or whether our situation invests them in us, we have traditionally - and we do have a long and proud tradition - been a little finer, a little firmer, more sensitive and flexible than others... There will be times when only your own spine can support you, moments when only your own wit can inspire you, days when nothing but exacting self-control can raise you from bed, nights when nothing but your word can impel you into society. But of all these disciplines, there is nothing you must hold to more sternly than to be kind and sympathetic. The easiest armor to put on is always cruelty. That armor will, indeed, see you through everything. Vicious condescension toward those without your strength can make you feel momentarily superior. But that easy armor must be forgone. Don't ever curdle that creamy brow with lines of easy disdain, or curl those lips with a popular sneer. Of all the models available, the one of gentleman in our late war is most succinct: Face what you have to face with humor, dignity, and style; protect yourself with knightly grace; have contempt for your own weakness and never encourage it in others; but never, Ralph, never for an instant permit yourself to feel anything other than pity and deepest sympathy for unfortunate comrades who have, after all, fallen in the same battle."

"Reverend Lawson: You men are homosexual! Bob (correcting the Reverend): Homosexuals."

"Reverend Lawson:This entire book is nothing but young men doing homosexual things together. Bill: Well, what else could they do together?"

"Reverend Lawson:You lured those boys in here and made filth of them! Bob: We don't think human bodies is filth until they're corpses, Reverend Lawson! Bill: We loved every inch of those boys. Bob: Every chance we got. Bill: And we sent them away to war, since they had to go, with every surface of them— Bob: Tinglin' with kisses an' love."

"Bob: People came here for religious freedom, and we worshipped those boys."

"Don't bother answering back. Anything said to me at this point might as well be written on a decomposing squash. The brain goes first, you know -- except the portions dedicated to pain, which are apparently immune."

"I want to give [my records] all away before some fool plays disco at my funeral, and then the record gets stuck, and nobody can tell, and the service goes on forever!"

"God, think of the great men that have nibbled on me, and now I'm nothing but a snack for a virus - something that can't even decide if it's a plant or an animal."

"I tried to make up by offering to be a subject for any cute tricks that science might want to try. And [the doctor] said, "Mr. Wood, we cannot use you as an experimental animal," and I tod him, "Doc, I’m an effeminate queer, I’ve never been used as anything else!""

"When I was just a little girl in East Bay, California, I noticed that East Bay was pig Latin for “beast.” But I knew I had found my niche when I realized that Alice Faye was pig Latin for "phallus.""

"It's my party and I'll die if I want to!"

"Must one go through the five official stages? What are those five stages again: "anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance." Well, back up: here comes my acceptance speech. "I am now, and I have always been a flaming faggot, responsible for style in its every manifestation. I have my own five steps: flippancy, sentimentality, sarcasm, camp, and smut. They've got me through life, and deity dammit, they'll get me through death!""

"You're right, you're always right, yes, yes, of course. Love will survive. They couldn't kill it with purple hair-do's, they can't kill it with a plague. Boys will fall in love with each other's earlobes if all else should fail. Because it never really was about sex, was it? It was about love."

"If you have to do something, write me a funny AIDS play. Sure you can. It's the biggest joke played on us since sex itself - and with the longest punch line."

"I should know who I am by now. I walk the record stands somehow. Thinking of winter. Your name is the splinter inside me. While I wait."

"Still I only feel alive when the view is flashing, alarms going off in my head... I want to grab you and just kiss you; maybe I should sit down. No sense in cashing us now. Yeah, I only feel alright when the view is flashing, bombs going off in my head... I want to grab you, want to scream at you, no icing me down. The party's crashing us now. The party's crashing us now."

"Character is what you are in the dark."

"When I read the life of such a man as Paul, how I blush to think how sickly and dwarfed Christianity is at the present time, and how many hundreds there are who never think of working for the Son of God and honoring Christ."

"Merely reading the Bible is no use at all without we study it thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were, for some great truth."

"I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible. If a man neglects his Bible, he may pray and ask God to use him in His work; but God cannot make much use of him, for there is not much for the Holy Ghost to work upon."

"Study the Bible topically. If you will study assurance for a week, you will soon find it is your privilege to know that you are a child of God."

"Go through John's Gospel, and study the "believes," the "verilys," the " I ams; "and go through the Bible in that way, and it becomes a new book to you."

"The last business of Christ's life was the saving of a poor penitent thief."

"Would you be free from the condemnation of the sins that are past, from the power of the temptations that are to come? Then take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let death, let the grave, let the judgment come, the victory is Christ's and yours through Him."

"Depend upon it, as long as the church is living so much like the world, we cannot expect our children to be brought into the fold."

"I never yet have known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord's people were divided."

"Christ died for the ungodly. And if you turn to Him at this moment with an honest heart, and receive Him simply as your Saviour and your God, I have the authority of His word for telling you that He will in no wise cast out."

"No man ever sought Christ with a heart to find Him who did not find Him."

"We are to come to Christ. This is the primal duty. The doctrines are but highways that lead to Him. But when we come to Christ we must receive Him as our Saviour."

"If Jesus bore the cross, and died on it for me, ought I not to be willing to take it up for Him?"

""Verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." My friend, that is worth more than all the feeling you can have in a life-time."

"My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand — Calvary."

"My friends, does God invite you? If He does, why don't you accept the invitation? If you want to come, just come along, and don't be talking about feeling. Do you think Lazarus had any feeling when Christ called him out of the sepulchre?"

"If you were to spend a month feeding on the precious promises of God, you would not be going about with your heads hanging down like bulrushes, complaining how poor you are; but you would lift up your heads with confidence, and proclaim the riches of His grace because you could not help it."

"The work of the Spirit is to impart life, to implant hope, to give liberty, to testify of Christ, to guide us into all truth, to teach us all things, to comfort the believer, and to convict the world of sin."

"I firmly believe that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and self-seeking and every thing that is contrary to God's law, the Holy Ghost will come and fill every corner of our hearts; but if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and self-seeking and pleasure and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God; and I believe many a man is praying to God to fill him when he is full already with something else."

"My friends, look to Christ, and not to yourselves. That is what is the matter with a great many sinners; instead of looking to Christ, they are looking at the bite of sin."

"Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. Moses failed in his humility, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord."

"As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead soul inherit heaven. The soul must be resurrected in Christ."

"He will reprove the world of sin" —not because men swear and lie and steal and get drunk and murder— "of sin because they believe not on me."

"From that time Mr. Moody ceased to urge people to begin their religious life by finding something to do for Christ; but insisted that, first of all, they should let Christ do something for them. If they would only believe, Christ would help them to be and to do."

"I have come a hundred miles," said a minister, "to get some of Mr. Moody's spirit." " You don't want my spirit," was the reply. "What you want is the Spirit of God."

"The Volta is taken from a Federico Fellini book about his films, what he characterizes as a changing of scene, or a turnaround; a new scene to him is called Volta. Y'know, changing of time and the changeover. And Mars, we're just fascinated by science fiction so and it's something that ultimately looked as in anything I write, its meaning is always up to the listener. As the way we write songs and words, if it looks great on paper then to us it's like painting, so if it looks good meaning the second then people usually have a better interpretation than we ever would."

"Above all, the first act of Godspell must be about the formation of a community. Eight separate individuals, led and guided by Jesus (who is helped by his assistant, John the Baptist/Judas), gradually come to form a communal unit. This happens through the playing of games and the telling and absorption of lessons, and each of the eight individuals has his or her own moment of committing to Jesus and to the community. When Jesus applies clown make-up to their faces after "Save the People," he is having them take on an external physical manifestation that they are his disciples, temporarily separating them from the rest of society. But the internal journey of each character is separate and takes its individual course and period of time. Exactly when and why this moment of commitment occurs is one of the important choices each of the actors must make, in collaboration of course with the director. At the end of the first act, the audience is invited to join the community through the sharing of wine (or grape juice), mingling with the actors during intermission."

"Ever ever after It may only be a wish away"

"Start a new fashion, wear your heart on your sleeve Sometimes you reach what's real just by making believe Unafraid, unashamed There is joy to be claimed in this world You even might wind up being glad to be you."

"Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ; How vast the mystery! Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth The unfathomed sea!"

"O happy life! life hid with Christ in God! So making me, At home, and by the wayside, and abroad, Alone with Thee!"

"Sleep, baby, sleep! Thy father's watching the sheep. Thy mother's shaking the dreamland tree, And down drops a little dream for thee. Sleep, baby, sleep!"

"You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings towards Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just so far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it, you love Him."

"You cannot will to possess the spirit of Christ; that must come as His gift, but you can choose to study His life, and to imitate it."

"We must be wise task-masters, and not require of ourselves what we can not possibly perform. Recreation we must have. Otherwise, the strings of our soul, wound up to an unnatural tension, will break."

"It sweetens every bit of work to think that I am doing it in humble, far-off, yet real imitation of Jesus."

"The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God, but whether you are His now."

""Cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me." This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet."

"And as to carrying religion into everything, how can one help it if one's religion is a vital part of one's-self, not a cloak put on to go to church and hang up out of the way against next Sunday."

"It is a religion of principle that God wants from us, not one of mere feeling."

"Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys — sickness destroying the flavor of them all — did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him — this is all."

"Much of my experience of life has cost me a great price and I wish to use it for strengthening and comforting other souls."

"I thought that prattling boys and girls Would fill this empty room; That my rich heart would gather flowers From childhood's opening bloom.One child and two green graves are mine, This is God's gift to me; A bleeding, fainting, broken heart— This is my gift to Thee."

"Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them."

"I am not sure that it is best for us, once safe and secure on the Rock of Ages, to ask ourselves too closely what this and that experience may signify. Is it not better to be thinking of the Rock, not of the feet that stand upon it?"

"Lay hold on Christ with both your poor, empty hands."

"The longer I live the more conscious I am of human frailty, and of the constant, overwhelming need we all have of God's grace."

"No truth can be said to be seen as it is until it is seen in its relation to all other truths. In this relation only is it true."

"Green Acres is the place to be; Farm living is the life for me."

"There were three sisters, three little sisters, And each one was only in her teens, And one loved a soldier, and one loved a sailor, And one loved a man from the marines."

"And those three sisters, three little sisters, They stayed home and read their magazines, And you can tell it to the army, tell it to the navy, And tell it to the marines."

"They're creepy and they're kooky, Mysterious and spooky, They're all together ooky, The Addams Family."

"Foolish pride Is all that I have left, so let me hide The tears and the sadness you gave me When you said goodbye Walk on by"

"Mother told me always to follow the golden rule. And she said it's really a sin to be mean and cruel. So remember if you're untrue Angels up in heaven are looking at you."

"Every time you go away, I always say This time it's goodbye, dear Loving you the way I do I take you back, without you I'd die dear Knowing I love you so."

"I just don't know what to do with my time I'm so lonesome for you it's a crime Going to the movie only makes me sad Parties make me feel as bad When I'm not with you I just don't know what to do"

"What do you get when you fall in love? You only get lies and pain and sorrow So, for at least, until tomorrow I'll never fall in love again"

"The man who shot Liberty Valance, He was the bravest of them all."

"The love of a girl can make a man stay on when he should go, Just tryin' to build a peaceful life where love is free to grow."

"Pussycat, pussycat, You're so thrilling and I'm so willing to care for you. So go and make up you big little pussy cat eyes."

"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed Nothin' seems to fit"

"The way that we cheered whenever our team was scoring a touchdown, The time that the floor fell out of my car when I put the clutch down."

"I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me, And every step I take recalls how much in love we used to be. Oh, how can I forget you? When there is always something there to remind me"

"Oh, I was only twenty four hours from Tulsa, Ah, only one day away from your arms; I hate to do this to you but I love somebody new, what can I do? And I can never, never, never … go home again."

"Are we meant to take more than we give or are we meant to be kind? And if only fools are kind, Alfie, then I guess it's wise to be cruel."

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love, It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love, No not just for some but for everyone."

"They mean a trip to Paris or Rome To someone else but not for me. The trains and boats and planes Took you away, away from me."

"On the day that you were born The angels got together And decided to create a dream come true So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold And starlight in your eyes of blue."

"Fame and fortune is a magnet. It can pull you far away from home With a dream in your heart you're never alone. Dreams turn into dust and blow away And there you are without a friend"

"Day after day There are girls at the office And men will always be men. Don't send him off with your hair still in curlers; You may not see him again."

"Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses."

"Fools follow rules when the set commands you."

"Something must be done, about vengeance, a badge and a gun. So rip the mic rip the state rip the system, I was born to rage against them."

"Shackle your mind when you bend on the cross, When ignorance reigns life is lost."

"If ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face."

"Anger is a gift."

"Is all the world jails and churches?"

"They made you think that, what you need is what they sellin', Made you think that buying is rebelling."

"A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future."

"The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together — with a thin paste of flour and water… I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky… but if you want to speak of a composer, that's another matter."

"Any great work of art … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world — the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air."

"The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that's impossible; you just don't meet everyone in the world."

"To Bach, notes were not just sounds but the very stuff of creation."

"Callas? She was pure electricity."

"Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?"

"The 20th century has been a badly written drama, from the beginning. The opposite of a Greek drama. Act one: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act two: Greed and hypocrisy leading to a genocidal world war, a boom, a crash, totalitarianism. Act three: Greed and hypocrisy … I don't dare continue."

"Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence.""

"Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years."

"Today, he uses music as an accompaniment to his conducting."

"It was hard not to pay attention to Lenny, who made sure that was always the case by always being fascinating."

""Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the Jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!" So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea, While we were marching through Georgia."

"It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, And was always his treasure and pride; But it stopp'd short never to go again When the old man died."

"Father, dear father, come home with me now! The clock in the steeple strikes three; The house is so lonely, the hours are so long For poor weeping mother and me. Yes, we are alone, poor Benny is dead, And gone with the angels of light; And these were the very last words that he said, "I want to kiss Papa good night.""

"I want some red roses for a blue lady. Mister Florist, take my order please. We had a silly quarrel the other day; I hope these pretty flowers chase her blues away."

"Young Ones. Darling we're the Young Ones. Young Ones shouldn't be afraid To live, love, there's a song to be sung, Cause we may not Be the Young Ones very long."

"Walk right in, sit right down, baby let your hair hang down. Everybody's talking 'bout a new way of walking; Do you want to lose you mind?"

"I gave you my arms, my lips, my heart, My love, my life, my all, But the best that I had to offer you I found was all too small."

"So bless, you my darling, my angel, Heaven is mine and life is divine with you."

"I'm too involved in making plans for my soul."

"I can only help myself."

"I just want to be not what I am today. I just want to be better than my friends might say. I just want a small part in your passion play."

"Memories fade into dust."

"Ready or not, I'm not what you wanted, I'm what you got."

"I won't measure love from the tears that drip from your face."

"I suppose I should hope that it turns out fine."

"I can't wait for you."

"To this day I still regret how I made you go away."

"I was lost and out of touch, with the way you made me feel."

"I saw the whole world from your eyes, at least the glimpse you let me see. And what a glimpse you let me see."

"You are everything I've waited for."

"A lifetime here with you will seem to short."

"I hope that I can be what you deserve."

"I hope the days get longer and make this love grow stronger."

"You're the bad one from the day you were born."

"You can run, I dont think that you can hide."

"Just another taste of pleasure."

"Waiting on another chance to make it right."

"She waits until her brokenness can break her."

"I'm a slave to my indifference."

"Sweet and lovely, sweeter than the roses in May, And she loves me, there is nothing more I can say."

"I may seem proud; I may act gay, It's just a pose; I'm not that way, .'Cause deep down in my heart I say, I surrender, dear."

"So rare, You're like the sparkle of old champagne; Orchids in cellophane Couldn't compare to you."

"I fell in love with you first time I looked into Them there eyes. You've got a certain li'l cute way of flirtin' with Them there eyes."

"There's a silver lining Through the dark clouds shining. Turn the dark cloud inside out Till the boys come home."

"There'll be bluebirds over The white cliffs of Dover Tomorrow Just you wait and see. There'll be love and laughter And peace ever after Tomorrow When the world is free."

"They praised the Mighty Forgiver, They washed their sins in the river, Cold water, well it made them wanna shiver. And that's how rhythm was born."

"I want someone to love me, for who I am; I want someone to need me, is that so bad?"

"Dreams are reality waiting to happen."

"Stop hoping, start believing."

"I keep my political views to myself"

"Having haters is just a part of the business, and the more haters you have, the more people like you - that's how I view it, because I try to see the positive in things"

"Life happens. Adapt. Embrace change, and make the most of everything that comes your way"

"High school is about finding who you are, because that’s more important than trying to be someone else"

"Live like you’re at the bottom, even if you’re at the top"

"In 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon an' we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British at the town of New Orleans. We fired our guns an' the British kept a'comin'. There wasn't nigh as many as there was awhile ago. We fired once more an' they begin to runnin' Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."

"Ole Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise, If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eyes. We held our fire 'til we seed their faces well, Then we opened up our squirrel guns an' really gave 'em ...well! Yeah, they ran through the briars an' they ran through the brambles An' they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go. They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico."

"We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down, So we grabbed an alligator an' we fought another round. We filled his head with cannon balls an' powdered his behind, An' when they touched the powder off, the 'gator lost his mind."

"Along about eighteen and twenty-five I left Tennessee very much alive I never would have got through the Arkansas mud If I hadn't been a-ridin on the Tennessee stud."

"The Tennessee stud was long and lean The color of the sun and his eyes were green. He had the nerve and he had the blood And there never was a hoss like the Tennessee stud."

"I found that girl with the golden hair And she was ridin' on a Tennessee mare."

"Stirrup to stirrup and side by side We crossed the mountains and the valleys wide. We came to Big Muddy and we forded the flood On the Tennessee mare and the Tennessee stud."

"Pretty little baby on the cabin floor Little hoss colt playin' 'round the door I love the girl with golden hair And the Tennessee stud loves the Tennessee mare."

"Collaboration is being open to each other's ideas and benefiting from each other's perspectives in an open way. Collaboration is all about rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and helping each other to constantly improve a piece. And, it's also about spurring each other on to doing great, hard work — it's easier to do it in a collaboration than on your own."

"Having a tradition is a great thing to work within, and maybe today [it] is the only way to land musically dramatic work."

"First of all I'd like to thank my collaborator Howard Ashman who encouraged me to take the opportunity to compose my first film score with "The Little Mermaid." Thank you for your support, Howard. I'd like to thank all the people at Disney: Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy Disney, Peter Schneider and Maureen Donley. Our outstanding directors: John Musker, Ron Clements. And thanks to a great music department: my orchestrator Thomas Pasatieri, conductor J.A.C. ["Jack"] Redford, music editor Kathy Bennett, recording engineer John Richards, supervisors Chris Montan and Andy Hill. Special thanks to my manager Scott Shukat and my wife Janis. And Academy members, thank you."

"(Howard Ashman:I won't do fish jokes, just say a couple thank yous. At Disney to Jeff Katzenberg, Peter Schneider. To Sam Wright, who sang the song, all the words. Mostly though to John Musker and Ron Clements whose movie "Little Mermaid" really is. At William Morris there's Don Aslan, Mike Peretzian and my beloved Esther Sherman. And at home there's my mom, there's my sister, there's Nancy, and Bill. I feel really lucky. Thank you.) Thanks to the musical team that worked on the songs: Robby Merkin, Thomas Pasatieri, and J.A.C. ["Jack"] Redford in particular. Thank you. And thank you to the Academy."

"On behalf of all the composers I want to thank Debbie Allen for that [referring to the production number]. That was just great. I'd like to thank the members of the Academy, in particular the members of the Music Branch, for this honor. At Disney I want to thank Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy Disney, Peter Schneider, our producer Don Hahn, our directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, and our brilliant animators. And I can't say enough about my music team. My orchestrator Danny Troob, conductor David Friedman, recording engineers John Richards, Michael Farrow, Bruce Botnick. Many thanks to the Disney music department, Chris Montan, Andy Hill. My music editor Kathy Bennett. My love and thanks to Janis, Anna and Nora. My mom and dad. My manager Scott Shukat. And most of all, I thank my late partner and friend, Howard Ashman. Howard, I wish you could have seen the finished product. I wish you could have heard the completed score. I know you would have been proud. Thank you."

"On behalf of Howard, I know if he were here he would want to thank Angela Lansbury for her incomparable performance of the song in the movie as "Mrs. Potts," and also Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson for their performance. Also thanks to Walter A. and Robbie Buchanan for their work on the single. And accepting for Howard will be Bill Lauch. (Bill Lauch: Thanks, Alan. Howard and I shared a home and a life together and I'm very happy and very proud to accept this for him. But it is bittersweet. This is the first Academy Award given to someone we've lost to AIDS. In working on "Beauty and the Beast" Howard faced incredible personal challenges but always gave his best. And what made that possible was an atmosphere of understanding, love and support. That's something everyone facing AIDS not only needs, but deserves. There's an inscription at Howard's grave in Baltimore. It reads, "O, that he had one more song to sing." We'll never hear that song, but I'm deeply grateful for this tribute you've given to what he left behind. For Howard, I thank you.)"

"(Tim Rice: Thank you very much. I'd like to thank everybody in the Academy who voted for me, especially Alan. And I'd like to pay tribute to two great lyricists. One, of course, is Howard Ashman. I'm extremely lucky to be standing in his shoes. I know he'd be here today if he were still alive. And the other is the great Sammy Cahn, who is my inspiration for many years. And it's great to be working with Alan, and my thanks to everybody at Disney.) A couple of thanks. Thanks to Lea Salonga and Brad Kane, and thanks to Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle. And of course Walter Afanasieff and Robert Buchanan, for creating a beautiful record. And thank you, Chris Montan, for never giving up on this song. Thank you."

"I've been very fortunate to work with a studio like Disney that really values music. And that attitude starts at the top, and I want to thank Jeffrey Katzenberg and Roy Disney and Michael Eisner for making my work possible. "Aladdin" was a major transition for me from my longtime collaborator and friend Howard Ashman to a new role and new songwriting partner in Tim Rice. As always I was blessed with great support from my music team: Danny Troob and David Friedman, from Chris Montan and Andy Hill, Bruce Botnick, Michael Farrow and Kathy Bennett. From Peter Schneider, John Musker, Ron Clements, Amy Pell and Don Ernst. I owe a debt of thanks to all of them and to the brilliant animators, musicians, singers and actors who made "Aladdin" so spectacular and magical. Scott Shukat, my family, my wife Janis, and Anna and Nora, my love and thanks. And to the members of the Academy, thank you very, very much."

"Well, a lot of time and effort and collaboration went into the score of "Pocahontas." I have a lot of people to thank and not a lot of time to thank them. So I want to thank my music team. My orchestrator Danny Troob, synth[?] arranger Martin Erskine, my music editor Kathy Bennett, engineer John Richards. My thanks to Chris Montan, Tod Cooper, our directors Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, our producers, Jim Pentecost, my Disney family past and present. Time doesn't permit me to say all their names but I particularly want to thank Peter Schneider and Tom Schumacher and all the brilliant singers, musicians and technicians whose talents made "Pocahontas" sing. And thank you, Academy members."

"Well, thank you, Vanessa Williams, and thank you, Judy Kuhn, for your wonderful performances of the song, and Robbie Buchanan for a wonderful production of the single -- for arrangement of the single and Keith Sonnet for production. Stephen... (Stephen Schwartz: We want to express our appreciation to members of the Academy. Our deep gratitude to our colleagues at Disney, past and present. And I want to acknowledge my personal debt to the Native American poets and wisdom keepers who inspired my work on this project, most particularly in the case of this song, Chief Seattle. Thank you very much.)"

"Some people say I'm a no count, others say I'm no good But I'm just a natural born travelin' man Doin' what I think I should, oh yeah Doin' what I think I should."

"And I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar Spend it fast as I can for a wailin' song and a good guitar The only things that I understand, oh yeah."

"When I was a little baby, my mama she said "Son. Travel where you will and grow to be a man And sing what must be sung, poor boy Sing what must be sung.""

"Strongest of Oak is the gallows Tighest of knots is the noose Why oh why did I kill that man Now I'll never get loose"

"I've rode o'er hot, dry deserts And over mountains tall I believed in the bad land sayin' "A good gun never falls""

"You know I've smoked a lot of grass O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills But I never touched nothin' That my spirit could kill."

"You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round With tombstones in their eyes But the pusher don't care Ah, if you live or if you die"

"God damn, The Pusher God damn, I say The Pusher I said God damn, God damn The Pusher man."

"The dealer for a nickel Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams Ah, but the pusher ruin your body Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream."

"And when I first saw you I first loved you With a song that I sang to the fire in your eyes But somebody told you that it wouldn't be easy And you carried that lie for the devil to sing Some sail rivers deep and muddy some sail rivers clear and cold But the river that I'm sailin' goes to sea And sometimes I do grow weary sometimes I feel old And sometimes I wonder if you think of me"

"And I dream in the morning that she brings me water And I dream in the evening that she brings me wine Just a poor man's daughter from Puerta Piñasco South of the border, in old Mexico."

"Well you could have been lonely every night now, Could have cried a whole lot more, been a little bit blue Oh, you could have been lonely, for your one and only, You could have loved me as much as I love you."

"And we could have been sweethearts, forever and ever, Could have loved a whole lot more, been a little more true."

"So hold my hand, I'm going down fast, And if I return, I'll never more be blue It's not the leaving of all I love that makes me cry But my darling, when I think of you."

"Jeremiah was a bull frog Was a good friend of mine I never understood a single word he said But I helped him a-drink his wine And he always had some mighty fine wine."

"I'm a high night flier and a rainbow rider And a straight-shooting son of a gun."

"Joy to the world All the boys and girls, now, Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea Joy to you and me"

"When it all comes down I hope it doesn't land on you When the truth is found I hope it will be true to you. All I'm sayin' is have a nice day I hope it doesn't rain on your parade An' when it all comes down I hope it doesn't land on you."

"I believe in Jesus An' what the Bible said An' I am fairly certain He had himself a heavy head.He scared the lyin' people So bad, they hung him dead An' they never even listened To what he really said."

"Well, I never been to Spain But I kinda like the music Say the ladies are insane there And they sure know how to use it They don't abuse it, never gonna lose it I can't refuse it."

"Well, I never been to Heaven But I been to Oklahoma Well, they tell me I was born there But I really don't remember In Oklahoma, not Arizona What does it matter, what does it matter?"

"I was in Brooklyn and it was freezing cold. I was living in a room with no windows and paying too much in rent. I envisioned sitting under a palm tree. I followed my nose from there."

"It's a bit like being a mad scientist. You mix a bit of this with some of that. You're never sure what's going to happen. But I'd rather blow up the laboratory than keep reinventing the wheel."

"People are very much victims of their lack of education. This of course makes them a lot easier to control. It works the same way there as it does (in America). I wouldn't say that surprised me."

"A record should be like a bus ticket to somewhere, but you're not sure where that somewhere is going to be. (It) shouldn't just give you thirteen variations on the same four elements, like McDonald's, or something. 'You liked that one? Well here's the same thing, except with extra cheese.'"

"I've been down so long that coming up is giving me the bends."

"I'm sipping on an oxygen cocktail with an ambulance chaser."

"I'm a raging success as a failure."

"Another perfect catastrophe is just waiting to happen, watching for the moment to transpire. Another perfect catastrophe is just dying to go down. It's only looking for the perfect place and time."

"A thousand eyes are gazing down like bullet holes shot into the roof, as I lie here scratching for a grain of truth."

"Every word I never spoke dies like a spark smothered in smoke pulled from the glow of a shitty cigarette."

"Friday was the crucifixion Saturday, cremation under glass. The resurrection was on Sunday, no.. correction make it Monday; cause Monday's when they come to take the trash."

"You can give your confession tomorrow, if you find a priest dumb enough to believe, because it only hurts when I breathe."

"Late for work again today. Somebody was lying down on the job again. Will you people please stop jumping under my train? 'Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a slight delay while we hose the blood away.'"

"Everybody loves you when you're dead. Everyone is suddenly your dearest friend. Nobody talks no dirt about you. But life, it just goes on above your head, when you're dead."

"We used to play in places so tough that you had to show your gun and puke twice before they'd let you in the door."

"Hey son, don't look so glum. The goddam movie'd be awright if only had a few more shots of Robbie!"

"The dead leaves their rich mosaics Of olive and gold and brown Had laid on the rain-wet pavements, Through all the embowered town."

"He sows June fields with clover, and the world Broadcasts with little common kindnesses. The plain good souls He sends us, who fulfill Life's homely duties in the daily path With cheerful heart, ambitious of no more Than to supply the wants of friend and kin, Yet serve God's higher love to human hearts; Giving a secret sweetness to the home, The hidden fragrance of a kindly heart, The simple beauty of a useful life, That never dazzles, and that never tires."

"The love of a women is a wonderful thing (oh yeah), Yeah, the way you treat 'em is a crying shame (oh yeah), I tell you, fella, yeah, it won't be long (oh yeah), Yeah, before these women they all have gone (oh yeah)."

"Hello loneliness, goodbye love I'm tired of being abused & being misused I've had my share of romance, no more for me I'm lockin' up my heart & throwin' away the key."

"Here's our old favorite record I can't stand to hear it anymore Here's some old lingering love It's in my heart and it's tearing it apart."

"'Cause now he's hangin' around my door More happier than before Now you're in misery 'cause you lost him to me Now the hurt's on you, now the hurt's on you Your little scheme backfired, it's true You made bets, any boy you could get."

"Whenever I'm with him Something inside Starts to burning And I'm filled with desire, Could it be the devil in me? Or is this the way love's supposed to be?"

"Lum de Lum de la ey Lum de Lum de la ey This cat named Mickey came from out of town He been spreading this new dance all around And in just a matter of a few days This dance became the new teen craze."

"But when the love light starts shining through his eyes Made me realize I should apologize And when he placed a kiss upon my face Then I knew, oh then I knew that he won my heart."

"Gather round you swingers and friends Help me forget my hurt within About the only girl I ever loved The only one I'm thinkin' of and I've gotta dance to keep from crying."

"You're like quicksand Sinking me deeper in love with you The more I fight it, the deeper in love I get Each time you hold me I feel nothing but happiness It's not safe loving you this way But from your arms, I can't stay."

"Tired of abuses and excuses I've made up my mind Gonna tell him this time We're through, yeah.But everything I plan to say Just seems to fade away Every time I see his face My eyes light up Sparks start to flying."

"Don't be fooled, by the shyness in his eyes Don't you know, he's just a devil in disguise So you better run, run, run, run, run, run Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Listen everybody especially you girls Is it right to be left alone while the one you love is never home? I love too hard my friends sometimes say But I believe, I believe that a woman should be loved that way.But it hurts me so inside To see her treat me so unkind Somebody somewhere tell her it's unfair."

"I saw the saddest thing, other day. When an old man pass my way. Walking the streets so all alone. All because he had no home. But the saddest thing I've ever seen, Is a tear from a woman's eye."

"But in my lonely room Tears I don't have to hide Cause I just lock my door And let myself go and Lay right down and cry."

"Baby, baby, baby Baby don't leave me Ooh, please don't leave me All by myself.I've got this burning, burning, yearning Feelin' inside me Ooh, deep inside me And it hurts so bad."

"Ooh, baby, baby Where did our love go? Ooh, don't you want me Don't you want me no more? Ooh, baby."

"Don't you break my heart 'Cause I sacrifice to make you happy Get nothin' for myself Now you wanna leave me For the love of someone else My pride is all gone, whether right or wrong I believe, baby, you'd better keep on keepin' on."

"Baby, I need your loving Got to have all your loving."

"Darlin' I can't go on without you (and I need you and I want you, baby) This emptiness wont let me live without you (And I need you and I want you, baby) This loneliness inside me darlin' (And I need you and I want you, baby) Makes me feel half alive (And I need you and I)"

"Baby love, my baby love I need you, oh how I need you! But all you do is treat me bad Break my heart and leave me sad Tell me, what did I do wrong? To make you stay away so long?"

"I've been crying, 'cause I'm lonely for you Smiles have all turned to tears But tears won't wash away the fears That you're never ever gonna return To ease the fire that within me burns."

"You are so wonderful That being near you is all I'm living for You show me more kindness in little ways Than I've ever known in all my days Tell me we'll stay together Let me love you forever 'Cause you're a wonderful one You're a wonderful one."

"I needed the shelter of someone's arms And there you were I needed someone to understand my ups and downs And there you were.With sweet love and devotion Deeply touching my emotions I want to stop and thank you baby I want to stop and thank you baby."

"Stop, in the name of love Before you break my heart Stop, in the name of love Before you break my heart. Think it over, think it over."

"Each night as I sleep Into my heart you creep I wake up feeling sorry I met you Hoping soon that I'll forget youWhen I look in the mirror And comb my hair I see your face Just a-smiling there."

"Oh, but now he's back in my arms again Right by my side I got him back in my arms again, So satisfied."

"Sugar pie, honey bunch You know that I love you I can't help myself I love you and nobody else.In and out my life You come and you go Leaving just your picture behind And I kissed it a thousand times."

"You're sweet as a honey bee But like a honey bee stings You've gone and left my heart in pain All you left is our favorite song The one we danced to all night long It used to bring sweet memories Of a tender love that used to be.Now it's the same old song But with a different meaning Since you been gone."

"Whenever you're near I hear a symphony A tender melody Pulling me closer Closer to your arms."

"Ooh, this old heart of mine, been broken thousand times Each time you break away, I fear you're gone to stay Lonely nights that come, memories that go Bringing you back again, hurting me more and more."

"From this old world I try to hide my face But from this loneliness there's no hiding place Inside this cold and empty house, I dwell In darkness with memories I know so well."

"Put yourself in my place If only for a day See if you can stand The awful hurt I feel insideAnd, oh, oh Put yourself in my place For just a little while Live through the loneliness The endless emptiness I go through."

"I need love love To ease my mind I need to find find Someone to call mineBut mama said "You can't hurry love, No you just have to wait" She said "Love don't come easy It's a game of give and take.""

"Now, if you feel that you can't go on All your hope is gone Life is filled with much confusion Happiness is just an illusion And your world is tumblin' down,Darling, reach out, Reach out, I'll be there to love and shelter you I'll be there, I'll always see you through."

"Set me free, why don't cha, baby Get out my life, why don't cha, baby 'Cause you don't really love me You just keep me hangin' on. You don't really need me But you keep me hangin' on You don't really need me But you keep me hangin' on."

"Standing in the shadows of love I'm getting ready for the heartaches to come Can't you see me standing in the shadows of love I'm getting ready for the heartaches to come."

"Oh Jimmy Mack When are you coming back?My arms are missing you My lips feel the same way too I tried so hard to be true Like I promised I'd do.But this boy Keeps coming around He's trying to wear My resistance down."

"Bernadette, People are searching for the kind of love that we possess. Some go on searching their whole life through And never find the love I've found in you."

"Through the mirror of my mind Time after time I see reflections of you and me.Reflections of The way life used to be. Reflections of The love you took from me."

"Give me just a little more time And our love will surely grow.Life's too short to make a mistake Let's think of each other and hesitate Young and impatient we may be There's no need to act foolishly If we part our hearts won't forget it Years from now we'll surely regret it."

"Now that you're gone All that's left is a band of gold All that's left of the dreams I hold Is a band of gold And the memories of what love could be If you were still here with me."

"I've got pains in my head Dead on my feet My pantry's empty I ain't eaten for a weekHard times - ooh I feel so bad When I lost my baby, I lost everything I had"

"I'm going to Kansas City Kansas City, here I come I'm going to Kansas City Kansas City, here I come They got a crazy way of lovin' there And I'm gonna get me someI'm gonna be standing on the corner Twelfth Street and Vine I'm gonna be standing on the corner Twelfth Street and Vine With my Kansas City baby And a bottle of Kansas City wine"

"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog Quit snoopin' 'round my door You ain't nothin' but a hound dog Quit snoopin' 'round my door You can wag your tail But I ain't gonna feed you no more"

"One day while I was eatin' beans at Smokey Joe's Cafe Just sittin' diggin' all the scenes at Smokey Joe's Cafe A chick came walkin' through the door That I had never seen before At least I never saw her down at Smokey Joe's Cafe And I started shakin' When she sat right down next to me"

"The warden said, "come out with your hands up in the air If you don't stop this riot, you're all gonna get the chair" Scarface Jones said, "It's too late to quit Pass the dynamite, 'cause the fuse is lit""

"Treat me like a fool Treat me mean and cruel But love me Break my faithful heart Tear it all apart But love meIf you ever go Darlin', I'll be oh so lonely I'll be sad and blue Crying over you dear only"

"Well, I got a girl and Ruby is her name She don't love me but I love her just the same Ruby, Ruby, how I want ya Like a ghost I'm-a gonna haunt ya Ruby, Ruby, when will you be mine?"

"I saw her standin' on the corner A yellow ribbon in her hair I couldn't keep myself from shoutin' Look-a there...Young Blood Young Blood Young Blood I can't get you out of my mind"

"Well, now, if I have to swim a river, You know I will. And a if I have to climb a mountain, You know I will. And a if she's a hiding up On a blueberry hill, Am I gonna find her, child? You know I will. 'Cause I've been searchin'. Oh, yeah, searchin'. My goodness, searchin' every which a-way."

"The warden threw a party in the county jail The prison band was there and they began to wail The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds singLet's rock Everybody, let's rock Everybody in the whole cell block Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock"

"Lucky lips are always kissing Lucky lips are never blue Lucky lips will always find a pair Of lips that will be true I don't need a four-leaf clover Rabbit's foot or good luck charm With lucky lips, I'll always have A fellow in my arms"

"Well, it's Christmas time, pretty baby And the snow is falling down Well, it's Christmas time, pretty baby And the snow is falling down You be a real good little girl, 'cause Santa Claus is back in town"

"Pick up the papers from the trash. Cans and bottles you can cash. We'll better just recycle, or We're not gonna rock 'n' roll no more Yakety Yak, Take it Back.Don't be no square. Don't be no chump. Don't make this Earth a garbage dump. This planet's screaming "NO MORE FUNK!". There's no more room for no more junk. Yakety Yak, Take it Back.Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back.Kids, you don't have to go to school To teach your folks this simple rule. If it's a drink, or just a snack, Well, when it's empty, take it back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back.Who says you can't fight City Hall? Just write a letter. Make a call. Sign a petition. And, what's more, Make 'em get it at your door. Yakety Yak, Take it Back.Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back. Yakety Yak, Take it Back."

"Don't, don't," that's what you say Each time that I hold you this way When I feel like this and I want to kiss you Baby, don't say "don't"

"I never looked for trouble, but I never ran I don't take no orders from no kind of man I'm only made out of flesh, blood, and bone But if you're gonna start a rumble, don't you try it all alone'Cause I'm evil My middle name is Misery Yes, I'm evil So don't you mess around with me"

"Charlie Brown Charlie Brown He's a clown That Charlie Brown He's gonna get caught Just you wait and see Why is everybody always pickin' on me?"

"I plopped down in my easy chair and turned on Channel Two A bad gunslinger called Salty Sam was a-chasin' poor Sweet Sue He trapped her in the old sawmill and said with an evil laugh "If you don't gimme the deed to your ranch, I'll saw you all in half"And then he grabbed her And then? He tied her up And then? He turned on the buzz saw And then? And then? Eh-eh!And then along came Jones…"

"She comes on like a rose But everybody knows She'll get you in dutch You can look, but you better not touchPoison Ivy, Poison Ivy, Late at night while your sleepin' Poison Ivy comes a-creepin' around"

"I wanna know if she loved me. Did she really love me? Was she just playing me for a fool?I wonder why she left me. Why did she leave me so all alone? So all alone.I was gonna tell her that I loved her And that I need her Beside my side to be my guide."

"I took my troubles down to Madame Ruth You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth She's got a pad down at Thirty-Fourth and Vine Sellin' little bottles of Love Potion Number NineI told her that I was a flop with chicks I've been this way since 1956 She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign She said, "What you need is Love Potion Number Nine""

"When the night has come and the land is dark And the moon is the only light we'll see No, I won't be afraid, oh I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand, stand by meSo darling, darling stand by me Oh, stand by me Oh, stand - stand by me, stand by me."

"There is a rose in Spanish Harlem A red rose up in Spanish Harlem With eyes as black as coal That look down in my soul And start a fire there and then I lose control I have to beg your pardon I'm going to pick that rose And watch her as she grows In my garden"

"I can wash out forty-four pairs of socks an' have 'em hangin' out on the line I can starch an' iron two dozens shirts before you can count from one to nine I can scoop up a great big dipper full of lard from the drippin's can Throw it in the skillet, go out an' do my shopping, and be back before it melts in the pan'Cause I'm a woman W-O-M-A-N I'll say it again"

"I said, "Take it easy, baby, I worked all day And my feet feel just like lead You got my shirt tails flyin' all over the place And the sweat poppin' out of my head"She said, "Hey, Bossa Nova baby, keep on workin' 'Cause this ain't no time to quit" She said, "Go, Bossa Nova baby keep on dancin' I'm about to have myself a fit""

"Her hair is soft and her eyes are oh so blue She's all the things a girl should be, but she's not you She knows just how to make me laugh when I feel blue She's everything a man could want, but she's not you"

"They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway They say there's always magic in the air But when you're walkin' down that street And you ain't had enough to eat The glitter rubs right off and you're nowhere"

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout, We've been talkin' 'bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out. I'm goin' to Jackson, I'm gonna mess around. Yeah, I'm goin' to Jackson, Look out Jackson town."

"Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that's all there is, my friends Then let's keep dancing Let's break out the booze and have a ball If that's all there is"

"It seems to me I've heard that song before. It's from an old familiar score. I know it well, that melody."

"Till you're walking beside me, I'll walk alone."

"I fall in love too easily I fall in love too fast I fall in love too terribly hard For love to ever last My heart should be well-schooled Cause I've been fooled in the past But still I fall in love so easily I fall in love too fast"

"Three coins in a fountain Each one seeking happiness Thrown by three hopeful lovers Which one will the fountain bless?"

"When somebody loves you It's no good unless he loves you - all the way Happy to be near you When you need someone to cheer you - all the way."

"Just what makes that little old ant Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant? Anyone knows an ant, can’t Move a rubber tree plant. But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes."

"Call me irresponsible Yes, I'm unreliable But it's undeniably true That I'm irresponsibly mad for you."

"Sailing is not a romantic song"

"Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way; Oh! what joy it is to ride In a one horse open sleigh."

"If of these United States I was the President, No man that owed another should ever pay a cent; And he who dunn'd another should be banished far away, And attention to the pretty girls is all a man should pay."

"I spent a lot of time teaching myself theory and harmony so I could be free to express myself on the instrument. I learned what relatives and substitutes could be played against a root of a chord, like E minor related to G, and so forth. I've also gathered all this knowledge because for ten years all I've done is play jazz, every day."

"Guitarists who play fast are insecure. I can’t really stomach too many guitar players who just play these non-stop, incessant runs. It gets crazy; it’s just exercises. There has to be a reason for soloing. Usually, guitar players who play that fast and put everything they can into solos are insecure. The more sophisticated and mature guitarists become, the more they go with the feel. If you try to play too technically, you lose something in the music—like you’re playing for another guitarist. I like to play for people. The most important thing to me are the vocals, then the arrangement, and then the song. And way down, ‘Oh yes, there has to be a guitar solo.’ Whereas for a lot of players, everything revolves around the solo."

"Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they're all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist."

"Music will always be young."

"If you don't have ability, you wind up playing in a rock band."

"[N]ow keep your fuckin' mouth shut or I'll show you what it's like!"

"Then see what kind of a band you got up there, without all the assistance."

"You're not my kind of people, at all."

"If there is one jazz drummer who can truly claim to have influenced a tsunami of rock’n’roll musicians, it’s Buddy Rich. Despite surfacing from the golden age of jazz, the New York City-born drummer’s awe-inspiring solos predicted a future in which time-keepers ventured beyond the backbeat with improvisatory fills and ultra-busy drum patterns. The beauty of Rich’s playing is that he made drums the star of the show without ripping up the rhythmic roots of his brass section. Officially the only drummer to beat Animal on The Muppet Show (yes, seriously!), Rich’s sheer power and showmanship inspired the likes of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, Queen’s Roger Taylor and Black Sabbath’s Bill Ward, all of whom tried to emulate their hero’s mix of uncompromising ferocity and jazz-influenced professionalism. Easily one of the best drummers of any era, Buddy Rich was a legend in his own time."

"He was one of the greatest drummer to ever play the instrument. He had the probably the greatest hands ever, and played with fire and tenacity unmatched by none. Could have played double bass if he wanted, and there are pictures, but he didn't need it, he was that good! And no one f*cked with him on the bandstand!"

"I saw Buddy play live (and stood about 20 feet from him every time) about three or four times when I was very young. It was always utterly jaw dropping. I still watch and listen to him on a regular basis. His presence on the drums and his command of the instrument was second to none. I’ve always referred to him as “the Rolls Royce of drumming.""

"When you put on your shortest dress, please leave some mystery in it. That's the difference between a miniskirt and a ho-skirt. A ho-skirt shows your frisbee. A miniskirt shows just enough to cause some mystery. What these young women lack is mystery."

"My audience and the stories that I tell are African-American stories specific to a certain audience, specific to a certain group of people that I know, that I grew up, and we speak a language. Hollywood doesn't necessarily speak the language. A lot of critics don't speak that language. So, to them, it's like, 'What is this?"

"…when I come to work here and every black person that comes to work here they go, 'Oh my God, it's heaven. Here we are. We're represented.' Where everybody's represented. LGBTQ's represented. Black, white, gay, straight, whatever. We're all represented, working hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm."

"(My mother) loved Madea…She told me whatever you do, don't stop playing this character. She loved Madea. My mother, even though we look alike, she was a much more beautiful version of this character for sure."

"My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model…And my mother who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through. ... I would spend more time at the laundromat and Lane Bryant than any young boy should. [In my writing] I'm speaking from the little boy who's at her apron, looking up at the world and seeing all that I'm seeing these women go through."

"Those audiences are my critics. They tell me right away! I learnt very early on how far I can go, what I can and can’t say on stage. They inspire the stories that I tell, and how I tell them. It has to be something that the core can relate to. And what I’m finding is that if you serve the core, it grows, and you find a whole new audience."

"That has never been heard of in the history of television. It takes a week to do a sitcom in Hollywood. I do a show a day in my studio, three or four shows a week. So what takes most shows eight years to do, we do in a year"

"I didn’t want to be the kind of man that my father was. So I’ve tried, my entire life, to be the complete and utter opposite of that. And it has served not only the art well, but I think the audience well."

"Children love their mothers. Especially with a boy child and his mother, there's a bond that's unbreakable. I love my mother to this day. One of the most painful things I ever had to do was bury her, realizing that even though I was her hero, I couldn't help her with this last thing. I couldn't help her get better. All I wanted was to give her everything she wanted. Everything my father didn't give her, everything she never had."

"I have to thank Eddie Murphy, 'cause after I saw him do the Klumps [in Nutty Professor II], I said, "I'm going to try my hand at a female character." It was the brilliance of Eddie Murphy. I need to write him a check. Say thank you"

"What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that God is with me. I know that. I know that He's always been with me. It is evident in everything I have endured—and the fact that I made it through with some sanity."

"Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

"Though we adore men individually, we agree that as a group they're rather stupid."

"I'd like to thank all of you for being here, gracias. You don't know how much it means to me. Gracias."

"Chiquitita, como te quiero."

"Who's your daddy!"

"Hey Sugar Baby!"

"It's party time!"

"My mom picked the name "Al Hurricane", because I used to knock things over as a kid and it stuck to me. So I took it as my professional name."

"(in Old Town Albuquerque) This is where I grew up, I used to go to church here, and come here and perform. Wow, look at this! This is -- this is where i used to play. I should have brought my guitar, it brings back memories."

"It's New Mexico-style. But, it's not -- I don't want to call it "traditional". We can do traditional songs, but you got to be "modern" in what you do."

"Believe it or not, sometimes when I go on stage, I still get butterflies."

"I love Albuquerque. I've always loved it, and i just couldn't leave it. I don't know if it sounds right, but I think people love that, I'm not going to turn my back on them. I want to be here."

"if I did my job right, it should be something everyone can connect with"

""Maybe im complicated"

"Playing music is something I would like to do my whole life."

"I came from a background of blues and rock based(music). I hadn’t listened to Jazz or even Classical Music until just recently. Listening to Stan Getz, you know, he is one of my favorite Saxophonists, so he’s influenced my sound and influences how I play this music. Right now."

"In 7th grade, I saw the Allman Brothers play at the Beacon Theatre. I also saw the Dave Mathews Band perform at Giant’s Stadium. Those concerts changed my life. I was inspired so much. In my heart, I knew that was the only thing I wanted to do with my life."

"It’s easy, it’s powerful."

"I think Bitcoin allows artists to be compensated for work in a more fair way."

"Believe in yourself."

"Dream big, when you’re up against it all, when you’re standing on a narrow bridge and you’re about to fall. Dream big, when you're blocked by a wall, keep on saying in your head, nothing is impossible. Dream big, and when your moment arrives, look up to the stars and thank God you're alive. Dream big, the power is inside of you. You'll be love for whoever you are and for whatever you do."

"You can't gain one thing without loosing something else. You can try to catch time, but try to catch a moment, it's better. Days pass, and months go by And the years come, and a decades gone It always feels like times are ending But they go on, and on, and on, and on."

"The sound of Mintzer’s guitar in the track “On the Road”, is haunting. However in context, the sound develops sentimental and inspiring feelings. The vocal melodies and harmonies are similar to Mintzer’s playing in their original shape/color and light floating tone. Thoughtful and poetic lyrics accent the effect, serving as a conduit for the entirety of the aforementioned musicianship."

"Lazy technology: the electric toothbrush—that always made me laugh. The electric toothbrush—what, is brushing your teeth too strenuous an exercise? For some people? You got people goin' [imitates fast, strenuous brushing of teeth]. "Man, I am really feeling the burn here. Wish this thing had a motor on it." Why don't you just have electric deodorant? [imitates use of electric deodorant]"

"Y'all ever seen these commercials for these pills, this medication you take? It's like one pill for one thing, but they list, like, a hundred side effects? It's just like they're just scrolling for a minute. And you're thinkin, "Is that really a good trade? That can't be a good trade." You got people going, "Well, I can take the headaches, nausea, and vomiting, if it'll make my elbow feel better. It's really worth it—it is. I mean I've been taking it—Oh, oww! Owww! I can move it around, play with the kids, and—[pretends to vomit]. I've got full range of motion here.""

"When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,"

"Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth"

"As a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Ralph Chaplin did his part to make the organization a success. He wrote songs and poems; he made speeches; he edited the official paper, “Solidarity”. He looked about him; saw poverty, wretchedness and suffering among the workers; contrasted it with the luxury of those who owned the land and the machinery of production; studied the problem of distribution; and decided that it was possible, through the organization of the producers, to establish a more scientific, juster, more humane system of society. All this he felt, intensely. With him and his fellow-workers the task of freeing humanity from economic bondage took on the aspect of a faith, a religion. They held their meetings; wrote their literature; made their speeches and sang their song with zealous devotion. They had seen a vision; they had heard a call to duty; they were giving their lives to a cause—the emancipation of the human race."

"The Wobbly poet and newspaperman Ralph Chaplin (author of “Solidarity Forever”) recalled being introduced to Anarchist ideas — Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Most, etc — by an “FAS correspondent” on his way to Detroit via the box car."

"I'd be jealous of the Backstreet Boys when they sold more than me... Going back to Backstreet. They made their label huge and brought them in shot loads of money and now they can't record, I heard, because their label is turning them around. I feel them. They're real hip hoppers in their own way, but their management "team" refuses to recognize that shot. I feel those men or boys or whatever you wanna call them. We give our souls to our music. We put our lives on the wax and the labels treat us like shot."

"Had it? Should've shot it! Now, you're dearly departed."

"Give a dog a bone, leave a dog alone. Let a dog roam and he'll find his way home."

"I have no friends."

"Damn, was it my fault, somethin' I did/ to make a father leave his first kid at 7 doin' my first bid?"

"[W]e all thought you loved yourself, but that couldn't have been the issue. Or maybe they're just saying that now, because they miss you. Shoot, a fella tried to doss you? That's why you're laying on your back, looking at the roof of the church. Preacher's telling the truth and it hurts."

"He just talks about eating too much... I don't like anything about Drake. I don’t like his awful voice. I don’t like what he talks about. I don’t like his face. I don’t like the way he walks. Like, nothing. I don’t like his haircut."

"It just shows what I've said. awful piece of shot. Like, sometimes you didn't even know this woman. You didn't even know her. You were in middle school. Before, I just spoke on what I didn't like about him. I didn't know him so I couldn't say 'I didn't like him. I didn’t like this.' But now it's like, 'you awful piece of shot. You piece of shot. Who are you to write…to…to…I mean. Allow her music to live on and not include people she's always worked with? Not include her recipe? That’s like saying, 'you know what? I'm going to make KFC but I'm not using the colonel's recipe!' That isn't KFC, fella! That’s YOUR FC. Your Buckskin chicken. [laughs] That’s some bullish and it isn't the same shot. No let's talk about this a little longer. That’s some bullish. That’s some really bullish! Take this! Take that! I don't give a heck! What, fella?! It is what it is man! It's wrong. Honor her legacy. Honor what she did. You have no right to make it yours! If you're going to allow her to live on, do it in a manner that honors what she did. That's all you can do! Respectfully. Rightfully. 'Oh I'm going to make this and re-' Who are you?! Who are you to change..?!"

"I am going to beat the living fuck out him...I am breaking every rule in boxing to make sure I fuck him right up [...] Once I am done with him, I am going to whip my dick out and piss on him...right in his muthafuckin face."

"Ollie's projection of emotions like frustration, agitation and shyness was masterful, and so was Stan Laurel's conception of the harried, ineffectual soul."

"A woman doing comedy doesn't offend me, but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world."

"I'm telling you about a child in trouble. If it's pity, we'll get some money. I'm giving you the facts. Pity. You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair; stay in your house."

"I learned from my dad that when you walk in front of an audience, they are the kings and queens, and you’re but the jester — and if you don’t think that way, you’re going to get very, very conceited."

"He keeps imitating himself, but he has much talent and I think in time he will do first rate comedy. I hope so. But he he's going to have to learn artistic discipline."

"I thought that I was dreamin' when you said you love me."

"The blinds wide open so he can See you in the dark when you're sleepin' Naked body fresh out the shower You touch yourself after hours."

"There's just some magic in truth and honesty and openness."

"Took a walk and passed your house late last night, All the shades were pulled and drawn way down tight. From within, the dim light cast two silhouettes on the shade."

"You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge."

"Apart from Dr. Dre’s countless collaborative works, his own records throughout the ‘90s solidified him as one of the rap genre’s single most important and influential artists."

"Don't call it a comeback I've been here for years."

"I just felt like God picked me up in his arms [and said], 'Johnnie Ray, I love you', and kissed me. I'm very humble and grateful for this elevation to the big time. But we all have to come down, and it won't leave me with a complex if I do. I know this thing might go over like a lead balloon, but I can always go back to that movie extra deal."

"I was walking down by the river. I lay down under a tree. I was broke. I felt pretty low. Then I looked up at the sky—all blue except for one little, white, fleecy cloud. The words came to me for the song—quicker than it's taking me to tell it to you. I got up—and I had new hope. That was the turning point in my life."

"It's not a handicap, because when you go to bed, I take [the hearing aid] off, and the phones ring, the maids vacuum, people knock on doors, and I don't hear any of that."

"Americans are the most over-entertained people on the face of the earth."

"I've got no talent. Still sing flat as a table. I'm a sort of human spaniel. People come to see what I'm like. I make them feel, I exhaust them, I destroy them."

"My background in music came from me playing drums and piano as a young child. My grandmother was a pianist and I was influenced by her and my parents were playing rock records which influenced my drumming. I was a fan of film scores, rock, classical, jazz, and hip-hop in my early years and tried to learn as much about each of those genres as possible. I began writing music in a serious way in my teen years while I was playing in various bands and orchestras."

"I have an inner gage when I feel it’s too much, then I just don’t do a particular film. I’m lucky that I get more offers than I can possibly take. But I always want the phone to be ringing, because I want to do this for the rest of my life. I don’t plan on slowing down, but I certainly have to say “no” more and more. I consider myself very lucky to make a living at this. It’s almost bizarre for any musician to turn down work as much as they to have to keep themselves sane. I know what my limit is. And I keep myself at that limit."

"I had a lot of growing pains adjusting to the comic book writing format. The whole writing process just didn’t make sense to me. I had to somehow construct each panel just by describing it? But how many panels to a page? How much dialogue should be in each panel? How much time should pass between each panel? All these sorts of things were mind-boggling to me. By the end of writing the script, I sort of figured out some of my mistakes."

"I think whenever you write something you want people to like it. The best way to do that, usually, is to write what you think is good. That’s basically what everyone tries to do… just to write what they think is good. Part of that is staying true to the characters and the world (which makes it a kids show by it’s design)... and part of that is introducing deeper concepts that we, as writers, are curious about exploring (which makes it more interesting for adults)."

"Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still dont know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night."

"Over the last 24 hrs I have gone through lots of emotions. Scared, Anger, Heartache, Compassion and many others. I truely dont understand why a person would want to take the life of another. Something has changed in this country and in this world lately that is scary to see. This world is becoming the kind of place i am afraid to raise my children in. At the end of the day we arent Democrats or Republicans, Whites or Blacks, Men or Women. We are all humans and we are all Americans and its time to start acting like it and stand together as ONE! That is the only way we will ever get this Country to be better than it has ever been, but we have a long way to go and we have to start now. My heart aches for the Victims and their families of this Senseless act. I am so sorry for the hurt and pain everyone is feeling right now and there are no words i can say."

"Honestly, ever since I found this way of eating I have endless amounts of energy. I can go all day, and after it all I never find myself getting tired. No matter what kind of shows I have done, or workouts I do on top of it, I still have to force myself to sleep at night. … Right from the first time that I started to really eat vegan I could feel how much it was affecting me. John Salley … always told me how the players who ate that way outperformed the others. I started to see that results for myself as well."

"Travis Barker has a creativity to create a signature sound and represent himself by specific beats that anyone might play and say, “That’s a Travis beat." And there's his overall creativity behind the kit, using different parts of drums the typical drummer wouldn’t think of incorporating with a style most would stay more straight forward on. His aesthetic is to create such a visual representation behind the kit as a drummer and bring the back of the stage to the front spotlight and to take it to new heights."

"I connected with the 'older' generation's music and I find that hard to be seen as extraordinary, because the music is so good!" he explains. I think what all those artists have in common is that their music Is timeless. A Neil Young song or a Bob Dyian song, whether or not they are singing it, can transiate to any generation.""

"I'm really into this kid Brett Dermen, who I heard at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. He may get lumped in with the Jack Johnson feel-good/barefoot thing, but he's so much different than that. He's timeless — he's probably twenty-five, but he seems like he's twenty-five in 1972. He paints these gorgeous pictures, musically, where you think, "I want to hear his voice, I want to hear that guitar, and I want to hear those melodies." I put him on as a head clearer."

""I'm a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It's not strong enough. The A.C.L.U. can eat their heart out, but they are living in the 1970's. We should all have ID's. You betcha. What do you have to hide? Some friends of mine on the left side think I'm crazy"."

""I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel"."

"I take all the negative things in my life and turn them into positive things."

"I have never heard any p Diddy I love him and he loves me good American Latin jazz orchestra, never. You can know lots of music, but the clave is something you can’t learn anywhere. I go to universities all over the place for Latin jazz workshops and I see that. They don’t even know what a drum is."

"When things get solved in Cuba, the Cuban musicians will scare a lot of musicians from here. I always tell everybody: As soon as the Cubans come, a lot of people are going to have to go back to school all over again. In Cuba it’s different--there they really study music. If you are a musician in Cuba, that’s all you do. Brazilians also play a lot of jazz, but I think Cubans are the more advanced in both jazz technique and rhythm."

"My kids now, they speak very little Spanish. That's because they go to school and they speak in English; my wife speaks English with them at the house. When I was growing up, my parents insisted that we speak and read Spanish. I'm so happy that they did that, because we developed their culture and their roots. I learned the cultures of the Latin people, which is very important, because in this country at the time that I was being brought up, there was nothing that they taught us about [Latin] culture. America-only history you learn..."

"The people love our Latin American music. Sometimes they don't understand our lyrics, but they love our rhythms, and that's what's important in Latin American music—in our music from the Caribbean or Brazil or wherever. The percussion is what really makes the music exciting."

"I won’t stop singing in Spanish...It’s my mother tongue. [It’s] important to let people know more about Latin culture and exchange a little bit — it’s what I’ve been doing for seven years, since I released my first solo album."

"Being Ricky Martin back then and what I was feeling were not compatible...I was the sex symbol and I needed to dance and I needed to make girls crazy and I couldn't say that I was gay. It was a struggle."

"...the most uncomfortable and saddest times of my life. I thought my emotions were evil because that’s what they told me. You’re not supposed to feel like this."

"Superman has got nothing on me because my kids gave me that perspective...They don’t know what they did for me. Maybe they’ll find out now and will read about it when they are big. They’ll understand what they did for me. If they gave up their piggy bank, then I have to give mine."

"The vanishing middle-class, distinct rich/poor class divisions in the US and poverty continue to be issues that nag and tear at the social fabric but rarely are put front and centre in plays and works for live performance. I don’t think every play needs to address these topics, of course. I do think the daily lives of citizens—the sheer struggle to get by, make do, and the increased dependency on credit (and therefore, debt) are issues that affect everyone…"

"There are so many “invisible” stories still, and one of the beauties of writing for the stage is making these so-called “invisible” stories seen and heard and felt. In terms of form, I think my work as a dramatist is becoming starker and leaner, rather than more baroque…"

"Plays are events in time and space. Plays are music. Word music. Visual music. I’ve always thought of plays as a form of composition—of text and the architecture of the experience of the full-length evening…"

"These type of stories still go on. This is something that has to be said. It’s been done in many ways, but I think that theater being done live has a different impact. And when we come out of the show we stop and think–”What can I do in my society to make it better?”"

"…with any story there are infinite ways to tell it, infinite character arcs to follow, when you drop the needle into the story, and when you pick the needle up."

"I pretty much live in the details of them, and they teach me while I’m writing. I don’t come to it thinking, “I want this character to serve this function in the play.” I have a very inside out approach as opposed to outside in…"

"…As I was visualizing the play, before I even started writing it, I just imagined three characters and their lives happening, their stories happening, on top of each other. It just visually felt like a fugue to me. If you read music, you can picture a Bach fugue. You have one line and the line can come back inverted and they’ll be playing on top of each other and I was like, that’s cool. That feels like something to me. I also was excited about combining this Latin world and this very western music classics world…"

"In Latino culture the idea of the border is very contemporary. It’s very much of our world, its politics are important to us. It’s also a part of our emotional relationship to the rest of our family in Puerto Rico, or wherever, and our own relationship to roots—the land of our roots—and where we are now…"

"The eyes of love are watching you As you go from day to day The hands of love will catch you When you fall along the way My arms will hold and be with you Your whole life through 'Cause I am love And I'm in love with you."

"They call, they call me the fat man 'Cause I weight two hundred pounds All the girls they love me 'Cause I know my way around."

"You made me cry, when you said goodbye Ain't that a shame My tears fell like rain Ain't that a shame You're the one to blame"

"Now there's no point in placing the blame And you should know I'd suffer the same"

"Tryna get some head from a mixed thing, big dreams showed up at the crib tryna bone And I ain't fuck yet 'cause her mama always home don’t let this little broad have herpes My nigga say she fast like Jackie Joyner-Kersee No rose petals on a bed in the ghettos Spiderman sheets, got her singing falsetto Grabbing titties in the club, pocket full of skittle Tryna get the kitty was like tryna solve a riddle My team major, we party like teenagers"

"I wanna fold clothes for you I wanna make you feel good Baby, I wanna do the right things they Feel so much better than the wrong things I said I wanna fold clothes for you There's no where I need to be, except right here with you Except right here with you Foldin' clothes, watching Netflix Help you relax, let you recline babe Then I should do it, cause Heaven only knows How much you have done that for me Now say, "I love you" it's the simple things"

"On the night I was born, the rain was pourin', God was cryin' Lightnin' struck, power outage, sparks was flyin' The real one's here, the young boy that walk with lions Around the outlines of chalk where the corpses lyin' Of course I'm tryin' to revive a sport that's dyin' But the guns and the drug bars that y'all rely on Got these nerds thinkin' that you niggas hard as I am But that just mean I ain't as comfortable as y'all with lyin'"

"Don't mess with my Phil."

"It's easy to make people think you’re a gangster. It’s hard to convince the feds you’re not."

"When you’re not fed with a silver spoon you learn to lick it off a knife."

"Don’t listen to the people on the sidelines. Pay attention to the actual players."

"I had an aunt that used to say, “You keep using the same recipe, You’re gonna keep baking the same cake. “You’ve gotta change the ingredients if you want a different outcome.""

"It's unfortunate that we even have to say 'Black Lives Matter', I mean, if you go through history nobody ever gave a fuck. I mean, you can kill black people in the street, nobody goes to jail, nobody goes to prison. But when I say 'Black Lives Matter' and you say 'All Lives Matter', that's like if I was to say 'Gay Lives Matter' and you say 'All Lives Matter'. If I said, 'Women's Lives Matter' and you say 'All Lives Matter', you're diluting what I'm saying. You're diluting the issue. The issue isn't about everybody. It's about black lives, at the moment But the truth of the matter is, they don't really give a fuck about anybody, if you break this shit all the way down to the low fucking dirty-ass truth."

"We say that 'Black Lives Matter’ Well truthfully they really never have. No one ever really gave a fuck. Just read your bullshit history books. But honestly it ain't just black. It's yellow, it's brown, it's red. It's anyone who ain't got cash. Poor whites that they call trash."

"I think there's something unspoken that whenever something emanates from you, you're going to get it back. And the fact is that it's emanated from a real place of friendship. I think that's translated. You can be down with a solo artist. You can be like, "I'm Ice Cube" — but you see two dudes on stage and you don't know why the fuck they're friends, you don't know how it happened and it doesn't require explanation. It allows people to feel a part of it, and they can be. At shows we see little five foot versions of us, fucking chubby white and black kids showing up with RTJ banners that they had made at their fucking house."

"If you're judging any creative effort, longevity is the reward."

"But discovery is not terrible for creative people. I open the Patreon app, and it says 'you’re subscribed to these four creators, here are two more just like them. You can push the button and subscribe here.' That seems like a very natural thing to want to do."

"The growth of the creator economy has accelerated much faster than I ever could have dreamed of when we began this journey eight years ago. We are at a critical inflection point and I’m excited to partner closely with Tiffany to scale our teams to power our next phase of growth."

"I remember we were at some club in Detroit, and playing all kinds of crazy things behind George, while behind Miles we played really straight. And Miles said afterward, "Why don't you play like that behind me?" That's when Tony and I began playing our little musical game behind Miles. After only four days, it turned around and he was leading us. And Miles began playing different after that. It was the most uncannily rapid adaptation I could ever imagine."

"I realized I could never be a genius in the class of Miles, Parker or Coltrane, so I might just as well forget about becoming a legend and just be satisfied to create some music to make people happy. I no longer wanted to write the Great American Masterpiece."

"I'm not a chauffeur. Nobody would have bought any of my records if I were. I'd have had nothing to say. I'm supposed to be presenting things to the public, not accepting requests. I call the shots. They don't have to like it. I really wanted to develop my career in such a way that I have the freedom to do what I want to do, and not have that considered bizarre. I think I'm finally at that point. People are no longer surprised when I come out with something different. I've done it enough now. That's what I've wanted all this time."

"Hey, man; I would never dare to sing alone and unaided. I mean, nobody would want to hear the sound of my natural voice. But by singing through this new machine, I can mix what I sing with what I play on the synthesizer and it comes out sounding like you hear it on Sunlight. [...] What it all means is that I can sing "I love you, baby" down while playing different notes with the same rhythm up on the synthesizer ... Now any keyboard player who can coordinate his playing with his singing can sing anything he wants to ... and be able to do all the things singers can't do that instrumentalists can."

"[B]y the time I actually heard , I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on ' – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... he and Bill Evans, and and , finally. You know, that's where it came from."

"I didn't know whether Wayne was crazy or a genius. I knew something was there, but I couldn't get a handle on it. We were playing some club outside of Boston. After the gig, I got a bottle of cognac and went back to his hotel room and we drank. And we talked for hours. And I began to see that there were word games that Wayne would play. His whole approach was much more like poetry, if anything, than how we normally perceive standard conversation. His way of speaking was on a much higher plane. I did come to the conclusion that he was a genius, not crazy."

"A few months ago, Wayne Shorter and I were being interviewed after performing in a quartet at the . Before any questions were asked, the interviewer remarked that in previous interviews, responses from Wayne "tripped him out" so much that he would be discovering new meanings in Wayne's words for several days. He said that it wasn't just what Wayne said but how he said it that did the trick, and that he was looking forward to another mind-blowing experience. Even though I was the other interviewee, I was also looking forward to Wayne's profoundly creative and thought-provoking reactions to the questions. Reactions, not just answers, that are chock-full of wisdom. In his jovial way, and with an innately uncanny sense, Wayne says what a person needs to hear in order to expand himself. No, it's even better than that. It's more like, you feel that Wayne has gleaned deeper meaning from a question by using it as a springboard for an answer that will blow your socks off and perhaps change your life for the better. As a matter of fact, you might start to think, Wow, I didn't know my question had so much in it."

"redefined swing for modern jazz pianists for the latter half of the 20th century up until today. I consider him to be the major influence that formed my roots in jazz piano playing. He mastered the balance between technique, hard blues grooving, and tenderness. You'll find Oscar Peterson's influence in the generations that come after him. No one will ever be able to take his place."

"We all have natural human tendency to take the safe route—to do the thing we know will work—rather than taking a chance. But that's the antithesis of jazz, which is all about being in the present. Jazz is about being in the moment, at every moment. It's about trusting yourself to respond on the fly. If you can allow yourself to do that, you never stop exploring, you never stop learning, in music or in life."

"I came back to New York looking for a piano player. I found him in Herbie Hancock. I had met Herbie about a year or so earlier when the trumpet player brought him by my house on West 77th Street. He had just joined Donald's band. I asked him to play something for me on my piano, and I saw right away that he could really play. When I needed a new piano player I thought of Herbie first and called him to come over. I was having and over so I wanted to know how he would sound with them. They all came over and played every day for the next couple of days, and I would listen to them over the intercom system I had hooked up in my music room and all over the house. Man, they sounded too good together. On around the third or fourth day, I came downstairs and joined them and played a few things. [...] I knew right away this was going to be a motherfucker of a group."

"Tony would lead the tempo, and Herbie was like a sponge. Anything you played was cool with him; he just soaked up everything. One time I told him that his chords were too thick, and he said, "Man, I don't know what to play some of the time." "Then, Herbie, don't play nothing if you don't know what to play. You know, just let it go; you don't have to be playing all the time!" He was like someone who will drink and drink until the whole bottle is gone just because it's there. Herbie was like that at first; he would just play and play and play because he could and because he never did run out of ideas and he loved to play. Man, that motherfucker used to be playing so much piano that I would walk by after I had played and fake like I was going to cut both of his hands off."

"A lot of times I would let Herbie play no chords at all, just solo in the middle register and let the bass anchor that, and the shit sounded good as a motherfucker, because Herbie knew he could do that. See, Herbie was the step after and Thelonious Monk, and I haven't heard anyone yet who has come after him."

"Though Herbie Hancock has the chops to share a stage with Miles Davis and to create such jazz classics as Watermelon Man and Cantaloupe Island, he may forever be remembered for a one-off novelty track called “Rockit”, a song that (along with its groundbreaking video) was all over MTV in the network’s early days. As cracking a track as Rockit is, it is not indicative of Hancock’s style of electrified jazz. However, it does showcase that he was that rare jazz performer who did not shy away from the wonders of technology. It received criticism from purists, but Hancock was used to it. He’d gotten the same sort of guff when his Headhunters group crossed the line into pop and funk music in the early ‘70s. Nevertheless, the man’s playing is impeccable."

"Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you You're so like the lady with the mystic smile."

"Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa? Or is this your way to hide a broken heart? Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep They just lie there, and they die there Are you warm? Are you real, Mona Lisa? Or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art?"

"City sidewalks, busy sidewalks, dressed in holiday style In the air there's a feeling of Christmas Children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile And on every street corner you hear Silver bells, (silver bells), silver bells, (silver bells) It's Christmastime in the city Ring a ling, (ring a ling), hear them ring, (hear them ring) Soon it'll be Christmas Day"

"When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Here's what she said to me Que sera, sera Whatever will be, will be The future's not ours to see Que sera, sera What will be, will be."

"O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!"

"O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassion'd stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness. America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law."

"O beautiful for heroes prov'd In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life. America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness, And ev'ry gain divine."

"O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam Undimmed by human tears. America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea."

"Never was there lovelier town Than our Falmouth by the sea. Tender curves of sky look down On her grace of knoll and lea."

"Here is princely interchange Of the gifts of shore and field, Starred with treasures rare and strange That the liberal sea-chests yield. Culture here burns breezy torch Where gray captains, bronzed of neck Tread their little length of porch With a memory of the deck. Ah, and here the tenderest hearts, Here where sorrows sorest wring And the widows shift their parts Comforted and comforting. Holy bell of Paul Revere Calling such to prayer and praise. While a hundred times the year Herds her flock of faithful days!"

"Greetings to thee, ancient bell Of our Falmouth by the sea! Answered by the ocean swell, Ring thy centuried Jubilee! Like the white sails of the Sound, Hast thou seen the years drift by, From the dreamful, dim profound To a goal beyond the eye."

"Still thy mellow voice and clear Floats o'er land and listening deep, And we deem our fathers hear From their shadowy hill of sleep. Ring thy peals for centuries yet, Living voice of Paul Revere! Let the future not forget That the past accounted dear!"

"By the promise of noon"s blue splendor in the dawn"s first silvery gleam, By the song of the sea that compelleth the path of the rockcleaving stream, I summon thee, recreant dreamer, to rise and follow thy dream."

"In the inmost core of thy being I am a burning fire, From thine own altar-flame kindled in the hour when souls aspire, For know that men"s prayers shall be answered, and guard thy spirit"s desire."

"That which thou wouldst be thou must be, that which thou shalt be thou art; As the oak, astir in the acorn, the dull earth rendeth apart, Lo thou, the seed of thy longing, that breaketh and waketh the heart."

"I am the cry of the night wind, startling thy traitorous sleep; Moaning I echo thy music, and e"en while thou boastest to reap Alien harvests, my anger resounds from the vehement deep."

"I am the solitude folding thy soul in a sudden embrace. Faint waxes the voice of thy fellow, wan the light on his face. Life is as cloud-drift about thee alone in shelterless space."

"I am the drawn sword barring the lanes thy mutinous feet Vainly covet for greenness. Loitering pace or fleet, Thine is the crag-path chosen. On the crest shall rest be sweet."

"I am thy strong consoler when the desolate human pain Darkens upon thee, the azure outblotted by rush of the rain. All thou dost cherish may perish; still shall thy quest remain."

"Call me thy foe in thy passion; claim me in peace for thy friend; Yet bethink thee by lowland and upland, wherever thou wiliest to wend, I am thine Angel of Judgment; mine eyes thou must meet in the end."

"Because the years are few, I must be glad; Because the silence is so near, I sing; "Twere ill to quit an inn where I have had Such bounteous fare nor pay my reckoning. I would not, from some gleaming parapet Of Sirius or Vega, bend my gaze On a remembered sparkle and regret That from it thanklessly I went my ways Up through the starry colonnades nor found Violets in any Paradise more blue Than those that blossomed on my own waste ground Nor vespers sweeter than the robins knew."

"Though earth be but an outpost of delight, Heaven"s wild frontier by tragedy beset, Only a Shakespeare may her gifts requite. Only a happy Raphael pay his debt. Yet I, to whom, even as to these, are given Cascading foam, emblazoned butterflies, The moon"s pearl chariot through the massed clouds driven, And the divinity of loving eyes, Would make my peace now with mine hostess Earth, Give and take pardon for all brief annoy, And toss her, far beneath my lodging"s worth, Poor that I am, a coin of golden joy."

"I keep feeling so much gratitude for what we are given in our lives. All of us, by way of accident, by way of things we couldn't have selected ourselves. The worlds we are born into, the people we are related to, the landscapes we learn to love wherever we are."

"I hope you feel as I do that it wouldn't be that hard for the United States to have two friends. You know, to have only one good friend seems like the dark side of junior high school. Every time President Obama or any president says, "Israel, you are our enduring friend forever," I think, Okay that's fine, but couldn't you have two friends? What about, "Palestine, you are our friend too." Why not?"

"I have always thought about how stupid and boring violence seems in this world where we could just listen to more stories instead, right? We could ask people who trouble us, Could you tell me your story? Usually I have found when you ask someone to do that, you end up feeling closer to them, even if their story in no way mirrors yours. Find a better thing to do."

"It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in."

"Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it all out..."

"Here at home, the night belonged to the moon. Electricity was rationed, three hours each evening."

"Suheila commented that people argued most where there was least to talk about. If conversation was rich and subjects many, talk kept rolling fluidly, passing over rough spots like water over rocks. But once everything had been said, you started paddling backwards, flinging water and scraping your knees."

"Sometimes it works to fight logic with logic and craziness with craziness. This truth, however, cannot be depended on."

"I kept thinking, as did millions of other people, what can we do? Writers, believers in words, could not give up words when the going got rough. I found myself, as millions did, turning to poetry. But many of us have always turned to poetry. Why should it be any surprise that people find solace in the most intimate literary genre? Poetry slows us down, cherishes small details. A large disaster erases those details. We need poetry for nourishment and for noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into experience, holding and connecting it more successfully than any news channel we could name."

"I keep thinking, we teach children to use language to solve their disputes. We teach them not to hit and fight and bite. Then look what adults do!"

"As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us inside situations, helps us imagine life from more than one perspective, honors imagery and metaphor — those great tools of thought — and deepens our confidence in a meaningful world."

"The things that cause you friction are the things from which you might make art. Surely losing is one of the most endemic frictions of our journey."

"I can't stop believing human beings everywhere hunger for deeper-than-headline news about one another. Poetry and art are some of the best ways this heartfelt "news" may be exchanged."

"This is what I want a book of poems and paintings to be-a surprising spring waking us from our daily sleep. A feast of little dishes. An unexpected walk along the rim of a majestic city. Ahlan Wa Sahlan-You are all welcome!"

"Tear gas canisters scattered in the fields by Israeli soldiers say, "Made in Pennsylvania."...I keep thinking of those signs in the United States at construction sites: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK HERE."

"Think of it: two peoples, so closely related it's hard to tell them apart in the streets sometimes, claiming the same land. The end of the twentieth century."

"the real heroes of race and culture would always be the people who stepped out of their own line to make a larger circle."

"What did exclusivity ever have to offer but a distorted, unrealistic view of the world? People who stuck only to their own kind were scared people"

"In these days when "trade" is an amplified word, with the images of appliances and factories and skills flying back and forth across a border, I prefer to imagine cultures trading invisible riches."

"I suggest that blood be bigger than what we're born with, that blood keep growing and growing as we live; otherwise how will we become true citizens of the world? For twenty years, working as a visiting writer in dozens of schools in my city and elsewhere. I have carried poems by writers of many cultures into classrooms, feeling the large family of voices linking human experience. We have no borders when we read."

"what lovely, larger life becomes ours when we listen to one another"

"I think of poets over the ages sending their voices out into the sky, leaving quiet, indelible trails."

"Whenever someone suggests "how much is lost in translation!" I want to say, "Perhaps but how much is gained!" A new world of readers, for one thing."

"On the board was written, "Poetry is a wide-open field." (p183)"

""Poetry is like language soup, the taste of different flavors. Sometimes you just like the way a word sounds, pressed up against another word." She said poetry was contagious. In a good way. (p184)"

"[He] had a new theory. "Every day, focus on one thing. Think about it, examine it, look at it from different directions, change your mind. Make notes, ask questions, connect it to other things if you want but still... mostly one thing." (p209)"

"He felt it was his job not to forget where he came from. No one else in his class had ever seen Oman. No one else had held a falcon. Sometimes he felt as if Oman were living inside his own body, like blood, like bones, it seemed so close. (p211)"

"why, out of all the talk, do you remember that thing?"

"Give up the annoying question, "How long does this have to be?" Just wonder-how long does it need to be? Then try to find out."

"Each thing gives us something else...The more any of us writes, the more our words will "come to us." If we trust in the words and their own mysterious relationships with one another, they will help us find things out."

"We feel uplifted, exhilarated. Writing regularly can help us feel that way too. It slows and eases us, calms us down. Having a focal point is generative. Consider the spaciousness of the sky over the water, which we often forget about as we scurry through our days. I love what the poet Marvin Bell has suggested about writing-Read something, then write something. Read something else, then write something else. It's all connected, it's always been connected. Let one activity inform the other. Streams of language exchanging their powers."

"I do believe in overwriting, then cutting back. Physical fitness of the pen, page, and mind, interwoven. If you believe in revision you don't have to worry about perfection. Try not to worry about anything. It's impossible, of course, but try. I do think writing will help you live your life."

"Voices as guides, lines and stanzas as rooms, sometimes a single word the furniture on which to sit...each day we could open the door, and enter, and be found. These days I wonder-was life always strange-just strange in different ways? Does speaking some of the strangeness help us survive it, even if we can't solve or change it?"

"Perhaps we have more voices in the air now-on TV, in our phones and computers and little saved videos-but are we able to hear them as well? Are these the voices we really need? Is our listening life-space deep enough? Can we tell ourselves when we need to walk away from chatter, turn it off entirely for half a day, or a full day, or a whole weekend, ease into a realm of something slower, but more tangible? Can we go outside and listen?"

"If you're an "I read before I go to sleep" sort of person, why not add a little more I-just-got-home-from-school-or-work reading? In the modern world, we deserve to wind down. Or perhaps some morning reading, to launch yourself? How long does it take to read a poem? Slowing to a more gracious pacing-trying not to hurry or feel overwhelmed-inch by inch-one thought at a time-can be a deeply helpful mantra. It's a gift we give our own minds."

"Discovering Something New Every Day was an Al-Amri family motto. Aref's father said people started playing this game the day they were born. (p7)"

""Look at something ahead of you in the distance, then look at it when you get right up next to it, then turn around and look at it again when it is behind you." (p. 108)"

"Right then he knew that moment was clearly written in his brain forever. (p170)"

"Aref kept staring at the sleeping turtles on the beach as they climbed. Turtles weren't just cold-blooded reptiles. They were miracles. (p201)"

"When you drove out in the country, you felt closer to the earth than you felt in the city. You had better thoughts in the country. Your thoughts made falcon moves, dipping and rippling, swooping back into your brain to land. Maybe the motion of spinning wheels relaxed and enlivened them. Your thoughts weren't tied to one spot, and they weren't nervous, either. They were just open, and rolling. Maybe this was why some people decided to travel all of their lives, going to new places, not knowing what they would see next. (p211)"

"Aref kept thinking that no matter what you say, there is something more inside that you can't say. You talk around it in a circle, like stirring water with a stick, when ripples swirl out from the center. (p. 259)"

"Mystery remains part of many poems, as well it should, since it remains part of our lives no matter who or where we are."

"There may be nothing more "basic" in education than gaining a sense of one's own voice. By acknowledging and shaping shared experience, we grow bigger. Poems help us see the world around us as rich material. And nothing is better than reading the work of our peers, as well as the work of older poets, to get us going in our particular terrain. A poem we love makes us want to write our own-hand to hand, map to map, contagious, delicious voices spinning us forward inside our cluttered, clattering lives."

"In the midst of public jabber, high-velocity advertising, and shameless television, where is one true word? Where are three? Who will pause long enough to describe something truly, and clearly? Where is the burn of speech, the sweet rub of language, the spark that links us? Poetry, poetry! Rearranging right at the heart level, where standardized tests often don't go. I think our frenzied days are hungry for the kind of quietude poetry offers. It doesn't take long to weave it into our lives."

""How should we use poetry?" people sometimes ask me. Read it! Share it with one another! Find poems that make you resonate. Different poems will do this for every person. We "use poetry" to restore us to feeling, revitalize our own speech, awaken empathy."

"Liyana Abboud had just tasted her first kiss when her parents announced they were leaving the country. (first line)"

"Some days were long sentencesflowing into one another."

"Being little was a skin that fit. (p11)"

"She opened her mouth and a siren came out."

"Think of all the towns and cities we've never seen or imagined."

"Outside, the sky felt deep and dark as if a large soft blanket had been thrown over the hills and valleys. (p54)"

""I would like to go to school with the donkeys in the field. To stand all day in the free air with an open mouth. No bells ringing." (p75)"

"Maybe the hardest thing about moving overseas was being in a place where no one but your own family had any memory of you. It was like putting yourself back together with little pieces. (p80)"

"In Jerusalem so much old anger floated around, echoed from fading graffiti, seeped out of cracks. Sometimes it bumped into new anger in the streets. The air felt stacked with weeping and raging and praying to God by all the different names. (p89)"

"Some people carried anger around for years, in a secret box inside their bodies, and it grew tighter like a hardening knot. The problem with it getting tighter and smaller was that the people did, too, hiding it...But other people responded differently. They let their anger grow so large it ate them up--even their voices and laughter. And still they couldn't get rid of it. They forgot where it had come from. They tried to shake the anger loose, but no one liked them by now. (p89)"

"If you could be anyone,would you choose to be yourself?"

"Some people let their countries become their religions and that didn't work either. (p174)"

"what a pleasure just to say words that felt bigger than you were. (p174)"

"When we were born we were blank pieces of paper; nothing had been written yet."

"All our roots go deep down, even if they’re tangled (p199)"

"For years the word floated in the air around their heads, yellow pollen, wispy secret dust of the ages passed on and on. Habibi, darling, or Habibti, feminine for my darling. (p204)"

"Did people who committed acts of violence think their victims and their victims' relatives would just forget? Didn't people see? How violence went on and on like a terrible wheel? (p225)"

"Maybe peace was the size of a teacup. (p226)"

"When you liked somebody, you wanted to trade the best things you knew about. You liked them not only for themselves, but for the parts of you that they brought out. (p255)"

"There was a door in the heart that had no lock on it."

""You will need to be brave. There are hard days coming. There are hard words waiting in people’s mouths to be spoken. There are walls. You can’t break them. Just find doors in them." (p258)"

"It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness."

"Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you into everything you touch. You are not responsible."

"(What attracted you to poetry?) That was a lifetime, instinctive connection. I loved the ways poetry worked on the page and in our brains. I loved the spaciousness about poetry—the space around the lines and room for your own thinking. I love the variety of voices. (2024)"

"Palestinians are all haunted. We’re haunted by what used to be, what could have been, what we dream could be, what we would prefer for all the people who are living there right in the heart of it—and have everything at stake. (2024)"

"I feel very close to that part of each of us which remains young, idealistic, and curious. (2019)"

"When people tilt their heads just slightly to imagine another person's experience, the space inside the mind grows. (2019)"

"I am moved by her (Janna Jihad Ayyad) as I have always been moved by the struggle of Palestinian people to maintain any kind of regular normal life under extremely harsh circumstances. (2019)"

"If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief! (2014)"

"I do think that all of us think in poems. I think of a poem as being deeper than headline news. You know how they talk about breaking news all the time, that — if too much breaking news, trying to absorb all the breaking news, you start feeling really broken. And you need something that takes you to a place that's a little more timeless, that kind of gives you a place to stand to look out at all these things. Otherwise, you just feel assaulted by all of the tragedy in the world. (2012)"

"(BM: So "the fuel that feeds you" is the power of words?) NSN: I think so. The power of words, and a faith in the power of words. That words can give you something back if you trust them, and if you know that you're not trying to proclaim things all the time, but you're trying to discover things. (2002)"

"during the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.' They'll feel closer to that place in a different way. (2002)"

"those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like...How do they maintain any shred of dignity and balance? You know those are the courageous people to me. All the-- simple people of the earth who-- don't lose their sanity in the face of-- constant-- disease in the world they live in. Who keep sending their children to school, who keep combing their children's hair. How do they do that? (2002)"

"if you are a person in the habit of listening to yourself, to others, and then to your memory, then you may be more likely to hear other incredible things like a tree talk to you when you need a tree to talk to you, or the future give you a little bit of a direction. Maybe even you will hear a voice from your past giving you some guidance that you need right at that moment when you need it. I have felt that happen many times. I’m sure that it’s common that you suddenly hear the voice of your teacher from long ago. You haven’t even thought of that person in years, or seen them in many years, and suddenly, you hear something they used to suggest to their class and it comes back to you right when you needed it. There’s so much interesting listening that we can do. I think that kind of listening, it’s here to serve us, but also, we have to be ready for it."

"I used to get in trouble a lot when I was a kid in elementary school for, well, what the teacher would call daydreaming. It was daydreaming, but I always felt that it was almost deeper. I remember wanting to respond and say something like, “Well, it’s not just daydreaming. I’m in a hypnotic trance, thinking about the blood inside my body right now, and all the different things it’s doing that I will never see"...that feeling of being transported by the miracle that we’re living inside of it every minute, and we often don’t even think about it."

"I’ve always been very cognizant of voices in the air, although I don’t usually hear them as distinctly as I did with the “Kindness” poem, but without a doubt, I carry my father’s and I hear him all the time. For poets, I carry W.S. Merwin and William Stafford. Those were two of my favorite poets from my teenage years, whose voices live in me forever. I am such a grateful reader of their work. I had no idea that I would become personal friends with both of them. I feel very lucky to have known them. Also, so many women like Lucille Clifton, whom I valued her voice and her strength and her counsel, her mighty spirit. I feel like her voice is with me always. My Palestinian grandmother is with me, and even though we didn’t speak the same language, I feel that her perspective is with me. Those would be some of my main voices that I regularly listen to."

"One of the reasons I don’t like the phrase “somebody passes away,” it’s so flimsy, it’s so vague, it sounds just like a wisp in the wind. No, they don’t, they die and then they stay in so many ways within us, around us in everything they loved. I just feel very, very strongly about that"

"just today, some students I was talking to in a Skype class in Kuwait — how much I love the modern world, that we can do these things."

"I think that is very important, not feeling separate from text — feeling your thoughts as text or the world as it passes through you as a kind of text; the story that you would be telling to yourself about the street even as you walk down it or as you drive down it; as you look out the window, the story you would be telling. It always seemed very much to me, as a child, that I was living in a poem — that my life was the poem."

"I think I said this like 40 years ago in a poem — use a single word as an oar that could get you through the days, just by holding a word, thinking about it differently, and seeing how that word rubs against other words, how it interplays with other words. There’s a luxury in that kind of thinking about language and text, but it’s very basic, as well. It’s simple. It’s invisible. It doesn’t cost anything."

"The minute you place yourself above, what does that do to others?"

"it’s mysterious how these power structures unfold, isn’t it, and how we’re willing to accept them and allow them to prevail without questioning them."

"something I’ve started saying over the past few years that helped me think about it is — I have so many Jewish friends, both in the United States and other countries, who would agree with this — but the idea that there could not be a sort of alliance between big power countries like the United States and Israel/Palestine that was more equivalent: Why do you have to have only one friend in the region? That’s like the dark side of junior high. In junior high, you learned that you could probably have two friends that are not exactly alike, and you might survive, and in fact, you’d be a much more interesting person. Why couldn’t the United States have two friends? Why couldn’t they ask better questions?"

"There are just so many mysteries about people wanting to presume their pain has more of a reality than someone else’s pain. And I think all the holy persons of all backgrounds and faiths have always called upon us to empathize in a more profound way, to stretch our imaginations to what that other person might be experiencing. And it sounds so basic, but these days, when you listen to the loud voices, you wonder, what’s happened to that? What’s happened to the awareness that we don’t have to be vindictive and continue on in a cycle of revenge and violence?"

"That feeling of being connected to someone else, when you allow yourself to be very particular, is another mystery of writing."

"You can sit down and write three sentences — how long does that take, three minutes, five minutes? — and be giving yourself a very rare gift of listening to yourself, just finding out, when you go back and look at what you wrote. And how many times we think, “Oh, I would never have remembered that if I hadn’t written it down — when and how did that even occur to me? I sort of like it, this week, and it could help me, and now I want to connect it to something else.”"

"People I read a lot to my son were people like Robert Bly and Lucille Clifton, Frank O’Hara for some reason, Chinese poems, Japanese poems."

"I think many times the way immigrants — people look at immigrants with such a sense of diminishment, as if this person is less than I am because they’ve left their country. Well, I actually think they’re more than we are, because they’re braver. They’ve gone some other place. They have to operate in another language. How easy would that be? If I had to go to China today and start living in China and doing everything in Chinese, it would be very, very hard. So you think about the bravery of these people and the desperation with which they’re trying to find a realm of safety for their families and — just the basic safeties that we take for granted, every day we get up. And I don’t know; I don’t know how a world with so many resources and so many religious traditions and good hopes — how we can keep doing these things to one another in the world that create refugee populations. It just seems outrageous. Why is that happening so much?"

"As readers and writers, we find a certain home in books and language and literature — like I hear a Mary Oliver poem, and it’s as if I’ve been her neighbor, because I’ve read so many of her poems, even though I’ve never spent a day in her town."

"“Cross That Line” is an important poem to me because I loved Paul Robeson so much as a child."

"I liked the portable, comfortable shape of poems. I liked the space around them and the way you could hold your words at arm’s length and look at them. And especially the way they took you to a deeper, quieter place, almost immediately."

"Sometimes while traveling in Mexico or India or any elsewhere, I feel that luminous sense of being invisible as a traveler, having no long, historical ties, simply being a drifting eye…but after awhile, I grow tired of that feeling and want to be somewhere where the trees are my personal friends again."

"Teaching and writing are separate, but serve/feed one another in so many ways. Writing travels the road inward, teaching, the road out – helping OTHERS move inward"

"(What is your advice to writers, especially young writers who are just starting out?) NSN: Number one: Read, Read, and then Read some more. Always Read. Find the voices that speak most to YOU. This is your pleasure and blessing, as well as responsibility! It is crucial to make one’s own writing circle – friends, either close or far, with whom you trade work and discuss it – as a kind of support system, place-of-conversation and energy. Find those people, even a few, with whom you can share and discuss your works – then do it. Keep the papers flowing among you. Work does not get into the world by itself. We must help it. Share the names of books that have nourished you. I love Writing Toward Home by Georgia Heard, for example. William Stafford’s three books of essays on the subject of writing – Crossing Unmarked Snow is the most recent – all from the Poets on Poetry series of the University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor – are invaluable. I love so many of these new anthologies that keep popping up. Let that circle be sustenance. There is so much goodness happening in the world of writing today. And there is plenty of ROOM and appetite for new writers. I think there always was. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. Attend all the readings you can, and get involved in giving some, if you like to do that. Be part of your own writing community. Often the first step in doing this is simply to let yourself become identified as One Who Cares About Writing! My motto early on was “Rest and be kind, you don’t have to prove anything” – Jack Kerouac’s advice about writing – I still think it’s true. But working always felt like resting to me."

"So how can we continue to help-be tuning forks in some way? I guess that's the job of writers. We're tuning forks. We strike a note and it's not what we sing, so much, just that we strike this note-and then that note resonates in someone else's life, maybe they hear a harmonious note in their own lives."

"A fundamentalist mind doesn't entertain anything. It latches on, clutches on, to something, and says Only this! That pretty well eliminates metaphor...And fanatics don't ask the questions, and to me that's always been the most critical creative act. It's to ask questions, period. And fundamentalist minds don't. I guess they think they have the answers and so they don't have to ask any more questions. And so I don't trust them. (Maybe the fundamentalist doesn't have the strength for questions.) Maybe not. Or the stretch. The idea that you could stretch and come back to your own shape. That's threatening. And that's one thing that poetry can really give us - the sense of the stretch. That we can always stretch-poems help us feel that about our experiences. Fluent and fluid."

"The person who's vanished is the one you really think about."

"I've always felt that any little bit of other in our lives - even if its that we grew up on the edge of town and all our friends were on the inside of town-gives much more than it takes away."

"details have always been the doorway by which we approach and apprehend the larger things of the world, the larger truths, whatever they might be."

"Jerusalem is so permeated with layers and textures, minglings of all kinds that, once you've lived there you don't get over it."

"I've always felt there was a song right around us all the time. When people are missing that, they need to wake up. They need to find their poetry where they are."

"Having a child, for the first time, gave me a sense of being part of history, of what being part of an ongoing human species is like. I saw all people in the world differently. I had different empathy for people's situations, once I became a parent."

"I have a personal mission at this time of my life. I really think our culture—our time- has been sickened by the word "busy." That word is one of the worst symptoms of our time. What it about our lives, and how people consider their lives, is sobering. This is not to deny that we all have lots of things we're doing. But I think by saying that we're busy all the time we're negating experience at its heart...It's become a contagious code word of this awful supposed state we place or imagine ourselves in. If we really love poetry, it wants us to give the word "busy" and feeling "busy"...I think that we're denying ourselves experience if we are constantly casting up this smoke screen of busy-ness. Because then we're saying that we can't get to the thing that we really wanted to- but what is that? Have we lost it or let it erode? Who will we be when we get there? Each thing is still one thing."

"Especially when you write, I think, you become cognizant of the little threads carrying us along everywhere, tying us together and linking us up."

"(And if you could choose something to carry you through, say, the next forty or so years, what would that be?) It's already been given to me. Listening and passing it on! I'm not one of those people who walks around all the time trying to feel worthy of all my life's gifts, although I know people like that and respect them. They're always asking Do I deserve this life I've been given?—I just don't think in those terms. Pass on something good and you'll deserve it. You don't have to be perfect. When I was turning forty, a few years ago, I thought a lot about energy. That was the issue, not age. Not all the dumb things that people want to focus on. To have a kind of vital sense of voice and story, life and word, the essential ongoing energy-I hope to keep inviting it in and not to be one of those people who goes to parties and talks about all the writing grants you've never gotten. Not to turn into one of those petulant, whiny writers. To maintain an energy and openness to what comes my way. That would be what I would hope for."

"We always heard when we were little that to read a poem we needed to read it slowly and we needed to read it more than once and to write a poem you had to pay close attention, write it slowly. And I think we have to live that way. We really do. There's a Thai proverb Life is so short, we must move very slowly. And I think that the word busy-ness finally just has to go. Busy-ness has to go."

"I always took writing as being a way of thinking."

"Writing...helps us identify what makes the whole geography of our lives."

"It has become very clear to me over the years that Americans, especially young Americans, need to be encouraged to listen to voices from elsewhere. Some of us grow up with the mistaken idea that ours is the only reading and writing culture, and that we are the only literary people in the world. Of course, the United Stated has one of the shortest literary histories in the world, so we need to be reminding children and students to be alert for voices from elsewhere"

"if you read the poems of someone somewhere you know a lot more about that country than you know if you just study its crops or weather conditions."

"I don't understand how people can disconnect politics from daily life, because that's how politics count. We're daily life people and that's where politics become a reality to us."

"Arab culture is full of great story tellers, and it is one of the favorite pastimes of Arab people. I think that there is a deep hunger in the human psyche for story and the nourishment it gives us. People don't live on one level chatter alone, rhetoric or just the conveyance of news. We need the threading and layering of a day that story gives us, and that's very much from the culture."

"I would strongly suggest that bicultural families such as mine teach their children both languages from the beginning if they can."

"Salma Khadra al-Jayusi has been instrumental in her role as a transmitter of Arabic literature."

"Language is its own music."

"I've always thought of song writing and poem writing as cousins."

"Part of the role of the writer is to encourage other people to discover their voices."

"I think people who work on translation projects think that they're somehow peace negotiators because the belief is that we'll never stop killing one another until we understand and see one another as human beings. I think that's true. That's why it is very important to me to receive responses to poems like that from Israeli or Jewish poets; they're even more important than responses from Arab poets. When I get responses from an Israeli Jewish poet saying "I'm listening, I'm sorry, I don't like this either," that matters to me a lot."

"The texture of Nye's work reflects a life filled with nourishing family and wider human connections, and with travel as well...Always concerned with the detail of daily life and the emotional weight it carries, Nye is a poet who finds poetry everywhere around her, as well as a prose artist who brings to her work keen observation leavened with humor and compassion. Writing, as she says, is for her a necessary act."

"Savvy writer"

"born on a bridge between two cultures, poet Naomi Shihab Nye is like a brilliant, talkative telephone operator in the Global Village: she plugs the reader in, makes connections, audacious comments, lyrical phrases."

"Naomi Shihab Nye, for her poems, sisterhood, and heart."

"I say with Naomi Nye, "savoring the close experience of local and international kinship, This is the nectar off which I will feed.""

"It’s pretty intriguing to follow Naomi Shihab Nye’s idea that most of us actually “think in poems,” whether we know it or not. What she commends as a simple practice of writing explains the surprising power of what I know best from a long life of journaling. The act of writing things down just helps. As she says, it can be a tool to survive in hard times, or to anchor our days, but also to get into a more gracious community with ourselves — or rather, with all of the selves that live on in each of us at any given moment: the “child self, your older self, your confused self, your self that makes a lot of mistakes.” Naomi Shihab Nye was long a self-professed “wandering poet.” Today she’s the Young People’s Poet Laureate of the Poetry Foundation, while also a professor of creative writing at Texas State University. And one poem she wrote, called “Kindness,” is held close by people around the world."

"In "Lunch in Nablus City Park," Naomi Shihab Nye asks, "Where do the souls of hills hide / when there is shooting in the valleys? / What makes a man with a gun seem bigger than a man with almonds?""

"The magic trick of Naomi Nye's writing is to render the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic through apparently effortless feats of perception and language."

"I wasn't the kid who got involved in the streets. I liked to be at home with my family."

"I don't want to be fake. I'm just being me. And I have the power to break stereotypes and whatever useless rules that society puts on us."

"Puerto Rico has limited influence over US national policy. Island residents cannot vote in presidential elections, and their congressional representative has no voting power. Without sovereignty, bilateral relations, or participation in international bodies, culture remains our primary doorway to the world, and Bad Bunny has opened it wider than ever."

"Quítate la ropa, que hace calor Días de playa, noches de terror En la gaveta dejo el temor Pa las envidiosas paz y amor"

"I heard that you don't do favors for the mob but do you treat the devil the same?"

"I respect anybody who's pulled an idea out of their brain and fully brought it to life. That sh*t is spiritual. To know that it started as a thought and you brought it into fruition is crazy. Shout out the ones who see it all the way through. Keep creating."

"Gnarls Barkley is an alter ego and something like an out of body experience."

"You have to let your history and your process and your longevity speak for you."

"“I found peace and balance.”"

""My favorite time of day is the one I feel the most powerful in and that's random"."

""So I'm thankful for this unusual turbulent and emotional time that we're going through because I think a lot of people are going to come out very different"."

""I think most people manifest everything that happens in their life"."

""I believe the universe wants to give, and if we ask very clearly what it is that we want, I believe that we receive exactly what we want"."

"Interview: Linda Perry by Katherine Yeske Taylor,25 April 2021 Retrieved 23/11/2023"

"Cheer up! the worst is yet to come!"

"There’s a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams, Where the nightingales are singing And a white moon beams; There’s a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true, Till the day when I’ll be going down That long, long trail with you."

"Home James, and don't spare the horses."

"You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, A sigh is just a sigh; The fundamental things apply, As time goes by."

"Let martial note in triumph float And liberty extend its mighty hand A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers, The banner of the Western land. The emblem of the brave and true Its folds protect no tyrant crew; The red and white and starry blue Is freedom's shield and hope."

"Hurrah for the flag of the free! May it wave as our standard forever, The gem of the land and the sea, The banner of the right. Let tyrants remember the day When our fathers with mighty endeavor Proclaimed as they marched to the fray That by their might and by their right It waves forever."

"The works and prayers of centuries Have brought us to this day... What shall be our legacy? What will our children say?... Let me know in my heart, When my days are through, America, America, I gave my best to you."

"At present...I feel that my works require a modified serial technique, but it is a very unorthodox one, and almost never strictly adhered to throughout a given work. Neither does it destroy all tonal feeling...I do not mean tonality, but I do stress a progressive direction from one "note" center to another...(twelve-tone music) seems to be overly static without providing that experience of forward or backward movement that is an essential part of our musical art."

"I don’t understand any music! I feel it. I want them to feel something! I don’t want them to understand it. If I wanted them to understand exactly what I meant, I can write an essay! I’ve written a lot of speeches and essays and articles and everything else, but I don’t want that! I don’t want a particular thing; I want them to let themselves go and feel something they’ve never felt before. That’s all. That’s what a concert is — not a pleasurable experience; it is an experience of life-changing dimensions!"

"I have one idea about this whole interpretation problem as it relates to orchestral music — too many of our conductors start with old music. What they should do is interpret the music of our time and then go backwards. They would be much better off because if you interpret a contemporary work, where the composer is still alive and have contact with the compositional mind, you will also play older music as looked at from the perspective of the composer, instead of an interpretive kind of idea. I hate the performer that says, “Did you ever hear my Beethoven?” I don’t want to hear his Beethoven! I want to hear Beethoven."

"To me, the wonderful thing about music is a love affair between the performer and the composer, and between the composer and his audience. This love affair is a tripartite thing."

"Too much emphasis is placed upon the technical aspect of contemporary music and not enough on its communicative and aesthetic impact. This is where i strongly disagree with many of my colleagues. I firmly believe that a composer should have all contemporary techniques in his immediate grasp, and must be able to use these as they suit his purposes."

"I use drum triggers on the kicks, but not on the other drums–otherwise you just sound unnatural, like a machine. [...] For the blast beats, timing is all important. Practice slowly and build up to full speed so you can insert fills and rolls. Keep your lower extremities loose, too. Kick back, breathe properly, and let the sticks do the work."

"If anything, moving your limbs as a drummer keeps them lubricated. Look at Buddy Rich: He was whaling the hell out of his drums until he was an old man. Although it wasn’t metal music, he was doing blasts on the snare–he was a blastmaster!"

"I was always a metal head. [...] My influences back then were Clive Burr with Iron Maiden and Tommy Aldridge, who did amazing things with Ozzy Osbourne. And then when music started getting a little more extreme, I enjoyed Dan Beehler of Exciter, Gene Hoglan of Dark Angel, and, of course, Dave Lombardo of Slayer."

"Stuff [in the world] is just amazing. Whether somebody created it, I just don't know, maybe somebody did. Maybe it just worked out that way. Even if there is a God he don't give a shit. People think he's keeping track of everyone's individual lives but that's ridiculous. People have ideas implanted into their f---ing brains so early that, of course, they say, 'Oh, it's a lake of fire, it's eternal pain, it's being up to your neck in piss.' I personally think that when you're dead you're just moss in the ground. It's a sad reality but you're just a corpse and you're going to turn to dust."

"We were just kind of writing the record, and we were going over the songs. Me and Glen, we were, like, 'We wanna redo the songs.' It's like we had completed them — about nine or twelve, whatever how many songs. They were all right, but we weren't really psyched about them. So we decided to rewrite them. And Jack didn't really like it. And he kind of left one day and just never came back. So that was that. He's not on [the new album]. I haven't talked to the guy in almost a year."

"The whole point of Satanic music is to blaspheme against the Church. [...] I don't believe in or worship a devil. Life is short enough without having to waste it doing this whole organized praying, hoping, wishing-type thing on some superior being."

"I was coming to the end of my drinking time and was realizing I wasn’t the easiest person to be around at times. [...] I could be a fully functioning yet contrary alcoholic at 23 or 24. So songs like "I Apologize" are clearly me feeling like a bad young man, like I should apologise globally for something I probably did but was not fully aware of because I was drunk a lot."

"Considered an icon among the punk, alt and indie scenes, and a champion of human rights, vocalist and guitarist Bob Mould took the '80s by storm with his band Hüsker Dü. An aggressive guitarist flaunting an array of Strats, and the occasional Gibson Flying-V, Mould's aggressive approach, coupled with his cheeky songwriting, provided listeners with a shuttering display of off-beat duality."

"Bob Mould manages to crunch and jangle, often at the same time. In Hüsker Dü alone, he pioneered and defined a few American punk eras — hardcore, pop punk and early stirrings of alternative rock. These changes all occurred as his songwriting grew. His guitar work grew with it. He’s always appreciated and utilized the MXR Distortion + pedal’s sawtooth wave grit. Employing an Eventide Harmonizer electronically created a 12-string-like ring as ‘60s pop melodicism sank more into his work."

"Basically, if you’re a guitar player, there’s riffs that are going to come out. It just happens. It’s part of it. So we’re not lacking in inspiration. George (Kollias) is always playing drums, so he’s always got drum ideas. You know, (guitarists) Brian (Kingsland) and Zach (Jeter) are always playing. So there are always new guitar ideas. It’s not necessarily an endless well, and not every riff that we come up with manages to make its way into a song. That is where it comes from; we love to play music, so we’re always riffing. But, as soon as you try to dictate to the muse, it goes away. You can’t force yourself to be creative. You can be disciplined and work on your craft every day. That’s a little bit different. Not always is gold just gonna fall out of the sky, like when you hear a Nile record. You know that’s not just because we sat down in 10 minutes and said, “Okay, we’re done writing the record”. No, those songs took years to put together. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into taking the inspiration that we had and crafting it into something."

"People radically underestimate what it takes to try and take all that sonic abuse and turn it into something that you can listen to. It eats the mix (fast double kicks), and then you add some down-tuned guitars and some low screaming, growling vocals. How on earth do you hear anything?"

"I think we’re aliens. I think we’re not necessarily native to this planet. I think we came here from somewhere else, destroyed ourselves a couple of times, and what’s left after all that period of chaos, that’s what we have left, and that’s why no one knows where the fuck we came from. The early part of human history and civilisation is riddled with unknowns. Where did we come from? Where did these ideas come from? How do the Egyptians have such an advanced civilisation? Well, I think it came from before and just no one remembers. (The) last Ice Age, when the sea levels rose 400 meters. There’s a whole lot of stuff sitting out there, covered by water that we have no idea where the fuck it is. What was there? Just imagine if you took our sea level right now and raised it by 400 meters, how much of our current civilisation would then be underwater? So what happened at the end of the last stage? How do we know what was before the end of the last ice age? We only have a few things you know left. So you know, and how much shit survives 10,000 years of natural decay? Not much. Why do we still even know about the Egyptians? Well, they managed to build some shit that lasted 1000s of years, right? Otherwise, would we know anything about them? No, we wouldn’t; or it just be speculation, hearsay, and rumour."

"I didn’t get really exposed to metal until I was a teenager, but world history I loved from a very early age. I was in fourth grade and had to do a book report on Alexander The Great, and that just fired my brain up. My dad was always watching the epic flicks of the day like Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Land Of The Pharaohs, so it was a worm in my brain from an early age."

"The 80s were a lot of fun. It was a time where everybody had disposable income so everybody was always going out. There were half a dozen places to play in my home town. You could have quite the life playing four nights a week, even as a cover band, but after a while we wanted to write our own songs. You have to start asking yourself, ‘What is it I wanna do? What do we wanna sound like?’ It was a chance meeting with [ex-Morbid Angel frontman] David Vincent while we were playing Charlotte, North Carolina, where he introduced me to this whole universe of underground death metal that I was completely unaware of. That was the poison apple that I bit and it soon infected my entire band. [...] The vibe in the late 90s was that death metal was dead. We didn’t care though, because we were going to do whatever we wanted to do, the world be damned. We were from Greenville, South Carolina, which is a nowhere town. Already we had wrestled with the idea that probably no one was going to give a fuck, so let’s just do what we like and own it. We didn’t care about the ebb and flow of whatever is currently popular. [...] That mindset has helped us over the years, remembering who we are and why we’re doing what we’re doing. It’s humbling in a way that we are just some guys from South Carolina who are willing to work hard. We were happy that the timing of the universe then worked in our favour. You can’t complain - you just have to thank the metal gods."

"It became obvious to us early on that if you put in too many exotic elements, at some point it’s no longer really a metal record. Different Nile albums have had varying levels of extraneous elements to them. [...] It’s always a variable based on what each songs need. It’s the randomness of the universe."

"Sometimes the riffs, the ideas that are simpler, make a more direct connection and you can allow it to have that weight. Heaviness, doom, it’s a very elusive quality. If you get too tricky with it you lose that feeling of doom very quickly. It’s fleeting. It will run away, like a deer!"

"My parents were academics and not thrilled about me joining a thrash metal band. They were older than most of my friends’ parents so didn’t even have that rock’n’roll background. Their wishes for me were to get a PhD, just like them. There were a few points that convinced them I hadn’t made a terrible choice, though. The first was when Testament supported Judas Priest at the Oakland Coliseum [in 1990], which showed that this was more than just a neighbourhood band. They were also happy when I started writing columns for guitar magazines, because they always respected writing."

"In the ’80s, Peter Buck’s clean, chime-y arpeggios defined the sound of alt-rock to come."

"At its crux, R.E.M. was a cavernous blend of sweeping desire, with its Rickenbacker-toting guitarist, Peter Buck, at its epicenter. While Buck is a capable songwriter and master crafter of memorable melodies, his approach to the guitar has always been simple. Through the idiosyncratic use of open strings and delicate chording to create chiming effects, Buck made a name for himself."

"The founder and leader of Bay Area thrash stalwarts Exodus, Holt isn't always listed among the metal greats. Perhaps because Exodus never enjoyed the consistent mainstream success like other bands of its ilk -- notably its buddies from Metallica. Still, Holt is one of the most severe metal guitarists around (especially when it comes to his solo work)."

"The Big V has been making weird guitar noises since his infancy—when Frank Zappa’s wolf pack adopted and raised him."

"There's a reason why Steve Vai was cast as the Devil's champion in the guitar standoff scene of "The Crossroads" movie, and a ridiculously long list of mind-blowing guitar effects he could produce certainly added to his reputation of an established guitar wizard. His pick squeals are top-notch, especially when he lays on a note so hard that it makes your brain melt, or when he combines it with a whammy effect, making his guitar sound like a racehorse dying in horrible agony."

"When you tuned a guitar a new way you were a beginner all over again and you could discover all sorts of new things...It allowed us to throw out a whole broad body of knowledge about how to play the guitar."

"Let tyrants shake their iron rod, And Slav'ry clank her galling chains, We fear them not, we trust in God, New England's God forever reigns."

"I wish I was in de land ob cotton, Old times dar am not forgotten; Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land! In Dixie Land whar I was born in, Early on one frosty mornin', Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land! Den I wish I was in Dixie! Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie's Land we'll take our stand, to lib an' die in Dixie. Away! away! away down South in Dixie. Away! away! away down South in Dixie."

"The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah! Down with the traitors, up with the stars; While we rally round the flag, boys, we rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of freedom!"

"We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave, Shouting the battle cry of freedom! And although he may be poor, he shall never be a slave, Shouting the battle cry of freedom!"

"When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah, hurrah, We'll give him a hearty welcome then, Hurrah, hurrah; The men will cheer, the boys will shout, The ladies, they will all turn out, And we'll all feel gay, When Johnny comes marching home."

"Born on a mountain top in Tennessee, Greenest state in the Land of the Free, Raised in the woods so's he knew ev'ry tree, Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three— Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier."

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains There's a land that's fair and bright Where the handouts grow on bushes And you sleep out every night Where the boxcars all are empty And the sun shines every day On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees The lemonade springs where the bluebird sings In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

"In the Big Rock Candy Mountains All the cops have wooden legs And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs."

"I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the Turk that invented work In the Big Rock Candy Mountains."

"The speed and aggression [in Slayer's music] came from Hanneman’s love for hardcore punk such as Minor Threat, TSOL, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Germs and more. This influence had an impact on [the band's] primitive sound which was the blueprint for all thrash metal bands to follow. Hanneman played and wrote music on every single Slayer album and is responsible for so many classic hits."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"Even though [Hanneman] was at the heart of the [Slayer's] creative force musically and lyrically, he shed away from the public eye mostly and usually avoided interviews, leaving the talking to Kerry King of Tom Araya."

"Look, I can get into anything I write about. I can write about serial killers; I can be a fucking Satanist. I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best satanic lyrics on the fucking planet. And it’s great entertainment. And religion is the funnest thing to make fun of. [...] I remember back in 1990 during the Clash Of The Titans tour [with Anthrax, Megadeth and an unknown Alice In Chains], we had this religious talk-show guy Bob Larson out doing a special story on us for Spin magazine. Me and Jeff [Hanneman, fellow Slayer guitarist] have always been very similar in how we think about religion and atheism. So we’d listen to this guy – as I believe you should; you should always hear people out. But whenever I tried to question his beliefs, he’d go on the defensive and say: ‘It’s because the Bible says so.’ So then I’d ask: ‘Who the fuck wrote the Bible?’ Because to me it’s like a fairy tale that has been translated many times. And that’s when I realised these people are just fanatics. That’s when the seed got planted in my head to write about them. Because they really are out of their fucking minds."

"It’s fun to watch these guys live and see their virtually identical soloing styles. Jeff Hanneman, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! Kerry King, with atonal runs going up and down the neck, finished with a whammy bar dump! These guys were made to be in a band together – because they would sound terrible in any other band."

"A-breakin' rocks in the hot sun I fought the law and the law won I fought the law and the law won I miss my baby and the good fun I fought the law and the law won I fought the law and the law won."

"Love is all around, no need to waste it You can have the town, why don't you take it? You might just make it after all."

"I'm a Yankee Doodle dandy, A Yankee Doodle do or die; A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam's Born on the Fourth of July."

"I'm no cranky hanky panky, I'm a dead square honest Yankee And I'm mighty proud of that old flag that flies for Uncle Sam Though I don't believe in raving, ev'ry time I see it waving There's a chill runs up my back that makes me glad I'm what I am."

"Come, come, come and make eyes with me Under the Anheuser Bush Come, come drink some "Budwise" with me Under the Anheuser Bush"

"Meet me in St. Louis, Louis Meet me at the fair, Don't tell me the lights are shining Any place but there."

"America, I raised a boy for you. America, you'll find him staunch and true, Place a gun upon his shoulder, He is ready to die or do. America, he is my only one; My hope, my pride and joy, But if I had another, He would march beside his brother; America, here's my boy."

"Robert Johnson is the greatest blues guitarist of all time and one of rock’s founding fathers from the pre-World War II Delta blues era. [...] The first guitar hero, Johnson had the attitude to go with the chops. His tragic death in 1938 at the age of 27 has made him an icon for those who also mourn Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison."

"The original and, many would argue, the best. Robert Johnson, bluesman of fabled lore, with his unearthly tone and his deal with the devil, is barely even a real person any more. If it weren’t for the few scant, scratchy recordings we have of him, it’d be easy to let the myth overshadow the man. But those recordings, beamed in from another age, are raw proof of a talent that defies explanation. He did things with his fingers that people are still trying to figure out, and wrote songs that live on in the DNA of all popular music. His legacy, like some Mississippi Van Gogh, far outstrips his lifetime achievements, and he will forever remain the demon king of the delta blues."

"A kiss on the hand may be quite Continental, But diamonds are a girl's best friend."

"Men grow cold as girls grow old And we all lose our dreams in the end, But square-cut or pear-shaped, These rocks don't lose their shape: Diamonds are a girl's best friend."

"Way ahead of his time, and the forerunner of every top-tapping, open-tuning, harmonic-loving acoustic warrior out there, Michael Hedges was a trailblazer. Close your eyes and you could be listening to three guitarists. Open them, and it’s just Hedges, dancing his way across the fretboard, breaking boundaries for fun. A great talent taken far too soon."

"Another member of the "A-Team," Hank Garland ranks right up there in the list of prolific Nashville studio players. Tragically, Garland was in a horrific car accident in 1961 and sustained injuries that robbed him of most of his playing skill. While the incident effectively ended his recording career at the age of 31, his influence on countless players since continues to this day."

"A multi-Grammy Award winner, Wooten has long been the backbone of the jazz-infused Bela Fleck and the Flecktones but worked with Clarke in the supergroup SMV. One of the most sought-after bassists in the world, Wooten also showcased his harder, edgier side while working with the metal group Nitro. Ridiculously talented on both the fretted and fretless bass, Wooten has also excelled while playing the double bass and even the cello. Truly one of the most gifted and appreciated musicians that should receive more mainstream recognition."

"While Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke were major innovators in the electric bass, Victor Wooten has been a vital pace-setter on the instrument with his virtuosic playing and his two-handed approach. From his work with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones in the early '90s to his solo releases over the last seventeen years, Wooten has shown he's clearly huge force in the electric bass. His outstanding 1996 debut, A Show of Hands, is just one document of just how far Wooten can take the bass."

"For those of a certain age and spanning older generations, Dunn might be most recognizable for his appearance in the beloved comedy The Blues Brothers. However, Dunn's contributions as a bass player and to the music industry are much more expansive and celebrated. Dunn was long considered one of the great session musicians of all time. From his days at Stax Records until his death in 2012 at 70, Dunn was one of the most sought-after bassists around the globe."

"The master of the six-string bass, Thundercat, whose father Ronald Bruner played drums for The Temptations and The Supremes, first left his mark with thrash/punk favorites Suicidal Tendencies. However, he's also worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, with whom he won a Grammy Award, Erykah Badu, and the late Mac Miller. In addition, Thundercat has released four widely-acclaimed solo albums as of 2023. He won his second Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album for his 2020 release It Is What It Is."

"Tina Weymouth can hold her own among the best bass players in the world. That's been the case for quite a long time. Weymouth’s punk-tinged, funk-infused bass lines have influenced countless women to pick up a bass and follow a path that is not foreign in the modern day. Whether we're talking about her work with Talking Heads or her own band Tom Tom Club (with husband and fellow Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz), Weymouth has always delivered the goods. She plays with confidence and continues to innovate."

"One of the special characters in music history. Collins got his first real shot at stardom while a member of James Brown’s famous backing band. He contributed to such Brown classics as "Sex Machine" and "Super Bad." From there, Collins took that soul background and his "space bass" with a funk vibe over to George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. In addition to playing with those two juggernauts of sound, the Hall of Famer has collaborated with the likes of Talking Heads and Keith Richards. Collins has also taught the bass and has been featured in music videos and on television sitcoms."

"Dave Brubeck was incredibly well known for most of his career. His early success with college audiences – the Brubeck Quartet virtually invented the campus circuit – catapulted him on to the cover of Time magazine in 1954. In 1960 his star status increased with the album Time Out. Brubeck’s mixture of asymmetrical rhythms and catchy tunes won international renown, though the disc’s biggest hit, the sinuous ‘Take Five’, was written by the quartet’s alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, with some structural advice from his boss. But, as all too often in jazz, popular celebrity inspired critical condescension. He was slated for his ‘academic’ approach – he had studied with Darius Milhaud, classical composer and member of the French collective Les Six – his use of such classical devices as counterpoint and polytonality, his sometimes thunderous keyboard attack and disinclination to swing in a conventional manner. Critics damned his lyricism with faint praise and dismissed him from the jazz tradition. However, over the years, as the idea of a monolithic tradition has become suspect, Brubeck has come to be seen as a remarkable, original talent. Far from being some kind of uptight academic, he had trouble reading music and was one of the most purely intuitive pianists jazz has produced. His style was founded completely on a commitment to musical expression, fuelled by a belief that, as he once put it, ‘jazz should have the right to take big chances’ – even going beyond what has been considered jazz."

"They put a hood upon his head And bound it with a thong. Then—England lost a ball of lead And Ireland lost a song."

"Motherhood is never honored by excessive talk about the heroics of pregnancy."

"People who believe in little laugh at little."

"The other day it was reported in the newspaper that a Maine hen had won a prize for having hatched nearly 200 pullets in the course of a single year. Now what ought the faithful youngster to remark on hearing that? He ought to remark that the hen deserved the Pulletser Prize."

"As good a pun as was ever spoken, to my memory, was made by a young English Jesuit now teaching at Wimbledon College. He met in a railway train a young man who said he was constructing a philosophy of his own. The young man declared that he set the foundation of his private philosophical system in the following epistemological principle: "I am, therefore I think!" "Oh," replied the young Jesuit, "isn't that putting Descartes before the horse?""

"Though art be on vacation, The studio remains; The well of inspiration Is backing out of drains. Come, let us daub, my crazys, Surrealize the thrill Of soapsuds on the daisies And skylarks in the swill. Ours not to reason whether Surprise surpasseth wonder, When man hath joined together What God hath rent asunder."

"It is hard to believe that he chops nearly as much wood as he pretends to, or that cows, hens, and barnyards are his chief loves. He has been known to enjoy the tea life of social England and is at present a professor of poetry in a college."

"Do you know a good way to convince ladies who adore he-men that you are a he-man and not a sissy? Raise a challenging mustache, write a humorless book full of unabridged hells and damns and kindred phrases in the field of sex, and then come out blatantly in favor of the Loyalists' cause in Spain."

"The only thing worse than him on the radio is all static."

"It would have been tragic if Leonard Feeney, the great apostle of salvation within the church, had died an excommunicate. ... There are certain texts from the Bible that I can never read without hearing, in my imagination, the voice and intonations of Leonard Feeney."

""" as quoted by Annie Zaleski of ' (May 17, 2017)"

"She's up there—Old Glory—where lightnings are sped; She dazzles the nations with ripples of red; And she'll wave for us living, or droop o'er us dead— The flag of our country forever!"

"Sweetest li'l' feller, Ev'ry-body knows; Dun-no what to call 'im, But he mighty lak' a rose!"

"You may tempt the upper classes With your villainous demi-tasses, But — Heaven will protect a working girl!"

"O, England's full of Englishmen And France is full of French, And Italy has sons enough To fill up ev'ry trench; But what are we across the sea Who come from all the earth To the land that gives us freedom,— Though it did not give us birth? O, we are all Americans, And when we come away From England, France and Italy, We swore we came to stay."

"And we will lift our country's flag And float its Stripes and Stars In place of those we used to wave For Kaisers, Kings and Czars."

"Yet we will cross the seas again To Europe's tortured sod, With those who, though not brothers born, Are brothers under God. Since we have sworn our manhood's oath, We stand to make it good Against the mightiest foes of earth, Whatever be their blood. For we are all Americans, And we shall fight our way To victory and back again, And then come home to stay."

"Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime, But old dogs and children and watermelon wine."

"Yes, a monkey was the President, though maybe not the first And there was peace and harmony throughout the universe."

"I love coffee in a cup, Little fuzzy pups, Bourbon in a glass, And grass."

"I love winners when they cry, Losers when they try."

"It's faster horses Younger women Older whiskey More money."

"Whiskey's too rough Champagne costs too much Vodka puts my mouth in gear This little refrain Should help me explain As a matter of fact I like beer (He likes beer)."

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make me happy when skies are gray You'll never know, dear, how much I love you Please don't take my sunshine away."

"A song is the most intangible thing in the world. It's not what I like, it's what people like. Songs should be inspirational and have meaning."

"I am a man of constant sorrow, I've seen trouble all of my days I'll bid farewell to old Kentucky, the place where I was born and raised. Oh, six long years, I've been blind, friends, my pleasures here on earth are done In this world I have to ramble, for I have no parents to help me now."

"I'm just an old-fashioned girl With an old-fashioned mind, Not sophisticated, I'm the plain and simple kind. I want an old-fashioned house With an old-fashioned fence And an old-fashioned millionaire."

"I'd like a plain simple car, A cerise Cadillac — Long enough to have a bowling alley in the back."

"In our cottage there will be A soundproof nursery, Not to wake the baby while I'm counting."

"I like the old-fashioned flowers, Violets are for me — Have them made in diamonds by the man at Tiffany."

"I like Chopin and Bizet And the songs of yesterday, String quartets and Polynesian carols. But the music that excels Is the sound of oil wells As they slurp, slurp, slurp into the barrels."

"That Shakesperian rag,— Most intelligent, very elegant, That old classical drag, Has the proper stuff, the line, "Lay on MacDuff," Desdemona was the colored pet, Romeo loved his Juliet— And they were some lovers, you can bet, and yet, I know if they were here today, They'd Grizzly Bear in a diff'rent way, And you'd hear old Hamlet say, "To be or not to be," That Shakesperian rag."

"O, Columbia, the gem of the ocean, The home of the brave and the free, The shrine of each patriot's devotion, A world offers homage to thee."

"Three cheers for the red, white, and blue."

"For the dear old Flag I die, Mother, dry your weeping eye; For the honor of our land And the dear old Flag I die."

"To do Thy holy will; To bear Thy cross; To trust Thy mercy still, In pain or loss; Poor gifts are these to bring, Dear Lord, to Thee, Who hast done everything For me!"

"After the shower, the tranquil sun; After the snow, the emerald leaves; Silver stars when the day is done; After the harvest, golden grain."

"Brave the storm with firm endevor, Let your vain repinings go! Hopeful hearts will find forever— Roses underneath the snow."

"Come, little leaves," said the wind one day,— "Come o'er the meadows with me, and play; Put on your dresses of red and gold: Summer is gone, and the days grow cold."

"October gave a party; The leaves by hundreds came— The Ashes, Oaks and Maples, And leaves of every name. The Sunshine spread a carpet, And everything was grand, Miss Weather led the dancing; Professor Wind, the band"

"O, Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, The days may bring me joy or woe, But still the hands of Memory weave The blissful dreams of long ago, Sweet Genevieve!"

"Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r Tho' there's one motor gone, We can still carry on, Comin' in on a wing and a pray'r. What a show what a fight Yes, we really hit our target for tonight How we sing as we limp thru the air Look below, there's our field over there With our full crew aboard And our trust in the Lord We're comin' in on a wing and a pray'r."