I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

I have a genuine love affair with my audience. When I`m on stage they`re not privileged to see me. It`s a privilege for me to see them.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.

Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Singers come and go, but if you're a good actor, you can last a long time

Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.

Critics are the men who have failed in literature and art.

Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I can't help it.

Comedy is the blues for people who can?t sing.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

Play it fuckin' loud!

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.