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" I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write. "

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" The basic function of popular music is to create an environment for courting, lovemaking, and doing the dishes. It's useful because it addresses the heart in the midst of all these activities, and it will always be useful in this very important way. "

" I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet. "

" I've always been into self-dramatization. I intend to live forever. "

" I had a very messianic childhood. "

" My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the 10,000 nights I spent alone. "

" I never had huge amounts of money when I was young. I had huge amounts of fame, and I always had the sense of labor and recompense. I always said I don't want to work for pay, but I want to get paid for my song. "

" When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you. "

" We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what? "

" All of my writing has guitars behind it, even the novels. "

" As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one's life or one's work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now. "

" If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often. "

" I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together. "

" I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd like to come back as my daughter's dog. "

" The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show. "

" And most people have a woman in their heart, most men have a woman in their heart and most women have a man in their heart. "

" I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse. "

" A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. "

" I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin. "

" At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It's a cliche, but it's underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable. "

" I read with some amusement my reputation as a ladies' man. My friends are amused by that, too, because they know my life. "

" We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. And there are times in one's life when one has to close down just to regroup. "

" I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me, even though I could barely carry a tune. "

" The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence. "

" I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot. "

" Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity. "

" I've never sold widely enough to be able to relax about money. I had two kids and their mother to support and my own life. So there was never an option of cutting out. "

" Songs seem to take me a long time. I don't know why; they're not especially excellent for taking so long. "

" My mind was always very cluttered, so I took great pains to simplify my environment, because if my environment were half as cluttered as my mind, I wouldn't be able to make it from room to room. "

" I can make a couple of good sandwiches: tuna salad and chopped egg salad. And Greek bean soup. I was a cook for my old Zen master for many years. So there were two or three dishes that he liked, you know. Teriyaki salmon, a few things. "

" I had girlfriends who really irritated me by their devotion to the Beatles. I didn't begrudge them their interest, and there were songs like 'Hey Jude' that I could appreciate. But they didn't seem to be essential to the kind of nourishment that I craved. "