"As the radio gently burned away, the flames began to affect the songs we had been listening to. A song that was no. 9 became no. 27 in the middle of a chorus about loving somebody. They tumbled in popularity like broken birds. Then it was too late for all of them."

"All my favourite singers couldn't sing" 

"Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat."

"Country music is three chords and the truth"

 "All I need is a piano and a big surfboard man"

"A writer sometimes needs to be able to just stand and gape at this thing or that thing - a sunset or an old shoe - in absolute and simple amazement."

"Look at this cigarette. Of course it's eating away at my lungs. But what else could give me that same kind of psychological orgasm, one that renews itself every five seconds, every five minutes?"

"Whether you travel or you don't It's a chore of enchantment"

"That in the beginning when the world was young there were a great many thoughts but no such thing as truth. Man made the truths himself and each truth was a composite of a great many vague thoughts. All about in the world were truths and they were all beautiful."

" I doubt Dante experienced the inferno before he wrote about it "

"We started to think we were musicians. It's a bad thing to think; it's irrelevant, not to the point."

"Writing is a great joy but the profession of writing is horrible"

"So you just sit at home and play music all day?" "Sometimes I stand"  

(Jon's pinched my copy of the wonderful Baker biography, 'Deep in a Dream', so there's no quote here... Beg, borrow or steal a copy and find out what heaven and hell really are...)

"Tonight I'm gonna get loaded down at the bar and eat some medicine and get beautiful. Tommorow, I'm gonna wake up and make plans to go out and do the same thing. Life is a hands-on thing"  

"Man, I love smoking"

"In 1967 I recorded Song Cycle, my first album; Warner Bros.'s publicity and sales department thought they'd just bought the Elephant Man."

"I have become an abomination to all but those few people who have overcome their aversion to truth in order to free whatever is good in them."