"Do parents sit down and tell their kids everything? I don't know. I don't know. I've convinced myself - I hope I'm right - that children despair of you if you don't tell them the truth."

"When I did 'Bumble-ardy,' I was so intensely aware of death. Eugene, my friend and partner, was dying here in the house when I did 'Bumble-ardy'. I did 'Bumble-ardy' to save myself. I did not want to die with him. I wanted to live, as any human being does."

"As a kid, all I thought about was death. But you can't tell your parents that."

"What I do as best I can is out of a deep respect for children, for how difficult their world is."

"The art of living is discovering that the melody of life is composed of both highs and lows."

"Patience is a virtue because the silence between the notes creates the music."

"I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice."

"The crown of literature is poetry."