"I don't sing them because I couldn't sing them as well as she did. I'd rather be a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of anybody."

"I couldn't sing Mama's special songs. I couldn't do them as well. I would rather present a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of Mama."

"Liza Minelli said she can't sing well enough those "special songs" of her late mother, Judy Garland, so she doesn't sing them at all. The award-winning entertainer said she'd "rather present a first-rate version of myself than a second-rate version of Mama.""

"Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty."

"I’ve been through everything. I always said I was like those round-bottomed circus dolls — you know, those dolls you could push down and they’d come back up? I’ve always been like that. I’ve always said, "No matter what happens, if I get pushed down, I’m going to come right back up.""

"The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it."

"But piece by piece, he collected me Up off the ground, where you abandoned things, yeah. Piece by piece, he filled the holes that you burned in me At six years old. And you know, he never walks away, He never asks for money. He takes care of me, he loves me. Piece by piece, he restored my faith That a man can be kind and a father could stay."

"Remember all the things we wanted? Now all our memories, they're haunted. We were always meant to say goodbye, Even with our fists held high. It never would've worked out right, yeah. We were never meant for do or die."

"A trophy wife how cute? Ignorance is bliss."

"I hope the ring you gave to her turns her finger green. I hope when you're in bed with her, you think of me. I would never wish bad things, but I don't wish you well. Could you tell, by the flames that burned your words?"

"I'm restless and wild I fall, but I try I need someone to understand."

"I'm looking for attention, not another question. Should you stay or should you go? Well, if you don't have the answer, Why are you still standin' here? Hey, hey, hey, hey, Just walk away."

"I've always dreamed that love would be effortless Like a petal falling to the ground; a dreamer following his dream."

"Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk. Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt. Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me. Because of you, I am afraid."

"Here I am, once again, I'm torn into pieces. Can't deny it, can't pretend; Just thought you were the one. Broken up, deep inside, But you won't get to see the tears I cry Behind these hazel eyes."

"This sad story always ends the same Me standing in the pouring rain."

"She looked in the mirror and thought today 'What happened to miss no-longer-afraid?'"

"I'm usually barefoot. That's how I'm most comfortable. I like my feet to be on the ground. I like to jump around, I like to fly across the stage."

"Now I am invincible No, I ain't a scared little girl no more Yeah, I am invincible What was I running for? (oh-oh-oh) I was hiding from the world I was so afraid, I felt so unsure But now I am invincible And I'm a perfect storm (oh-oh-oh)"

"In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force."

"Sail through the sea of sad faces with love. Love. Love for everyone. Drift like a little boat on a wave."

"I notice me. I notice you too. And there are simple things that we don't even try anymore. There's a way out of this. Beat the time. And every time I turn around we got some clever way to put each other down."

"When I'm all alone it's the best way to be. When I'm by myself nobody else can say goodbye.Everything is temporary anyway. When the streets are wet — the colors slip into the sky. But I don't know why that means you and I are — that means you and... I quit, I give up. Nothin's good enough for anybody else, it seems."

"I don't believe in hatred anymore. I hate to think of how it felt before When anger overwhelms your very soul It's hard to realize you'll ever knowLove like we do."

"Maybe you ride a different wave. Maybe you catch another ray of the sun That I've just begun to feel."

"All your thoughts are in another head. Your dreams are sleepin' in a different bed. The force that moves you is a circular breath of life and death going round and round and round."

"Wheels keep on turning and turning and turning And nothing's disturbing the way they go around."

"The village idiots in her bed Never cared that her eyes were red Never cared that her brain was dead. In the hours that her face was alive It was a thing just to be by her side."

"What I am is what I am. Are you what you are — or what?"

"Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep."

"I really thought I could give it up... But I really love music, and having a creative outlet is really the best thing you can do for yourself."

"Philosophy, is the talk on a cereal box. Religion, is a smile on a dog."

"I'm not aware of too many things. I know what I know if you know what I mean."

"He made me mess the song up when I looked at him... We can show the kids the tape and say, "Look, that's when we first laid eyes on each other.""

"What’s redacted will repeat, and you cannot learn that you burn when you touch the heat, so we touch the heat, and we cut facsimiles of love and death (just separate holes in sheets where you cannot breathe, and you cannot see)."

"Joy! Again, around—a pause, a sound—a song: a way a lone a last a loved a long. A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend. (Areion, Rharian; go free and graze. Amen.) A shore, a tide, unmoored—a sight, abroad: A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god). No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end. White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!"

"Love is not a symptom of time. Time is just a symptom of love"

"So it would seem to be true: when cruel birth debases, we forget. When cruel death debases, we believe it erases all the rest that precedes. But stand brave, life-liver, bleeding out your days in the river of time. Stand brave: time moves both ways"

"Now the towns and forests, highways and plains, fall back in circles like an emptying drain. And I won't come round this way again, where the lonely wind abides, and you will not take my heart, alive."

"In martial wind, and in clarion rain, we minced into battle, wincing in pain; not meant for walking, backs bound in twine: not angel or devil, but level, in time."

"Hey little leaf, lying on the ground— now you're turning slightly brown! Why don't you come back on the tree, turn the color green the way you ought to be?"

"And never will I wed. I'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life, and ever hold my breath, till I may be the diver's wife."

"Recall the word you gave: to count your way across the depths of this arid world, where you would yoke the waves, and lay a bed of shining pearls! I dream it every night: the ringing of the pail, the motes of sand dislodged, the shucking, quick and bright; the twinned and cast-off shells reveal a single heart of white."

"I know we must abide each by the rules that bind us here: the divers, and the sailors, and the women on the pier."

"And in an infinite regress: Tell me, why is the pain of birth lighter borne than the pain of death?"

"lists of sins and solemn vows don't make you any friends."

"All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide. That's why we got bound to a round desert island, 'neath the sky where our sailors have gone. Have they drowned, in those windy highlands? Highlands away, my John."

"As the day is long, so the well runs dry, and we came to see Time is taller than Space is wide. And we bade goodbye to the Great Divide: found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!"

"In December of that year, the word came down that she was here. The days grew shorter. I was sure, if she came 'round, I’d hold my ground. I'd endure. But they'd alluded to a change that came to pass, and Spring, deranged, weeping grass and sleepless, broke herself upon my windowglass. And I could barely breathe, for seeing all the splintered light that leaked her fissures, fleeing, launched in flight: unstaunched daylight, brightly bleeding, bleached the night with dawn, deleting, in that high sun, after our good run, when the spirit bends beneath knowing it must end."

"Above them, parades mark the passing of days through parks where pale colonnades arch in marble and steel, where all of the Twenty Thousand attending your foot fall (and the Cause that they died for) are lost in the idling birdcalls, and the records they left are cryptic at best, lost in obsolescence"