When I was born, I had a birth injury in my second and third vertebrae. It gave me what they called spastic paralysis, which is actually cerebral palsy.

Sometimes one misses the sign posts as you're going down the road. They aren't as obvious as they become when you get to the end of the road, so to speak.

I am happy with what comes, I don't have expectations of any stature.

My hobby is silence.

I was afraid of the press.

The first canon of my religion is that you shouldn't try to convince anybody to believe like you do.

I have damaged nerve endings on the right side, so my piano style comes from designing stuff I can play with my right hand. And some of it effectively mimics classical stuff.

For years and years, I would sit in my studio, and I wouldn't have any inspiration. I'd write one or two songs a year.

I was always trying to write standards, songs that anybody can sing. I figured that's where the money was.

I played on a few Frank Sinatra sessions.

I am not aware of my public image or what people think of me. I don't evaluate myself that way.

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience.

Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

I do not see a necessary connection between proletarian literature and some set percentage of words which bring the blushes to a maiden's cheek.

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.

There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.

Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.