I don’t try and be dark, but there are obviously darker emotions that I want to capture sometimes.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.

People have so much going on in their heads. I’m like, If you could write a song, you’d feel so much better!

Hatred is self-punishment.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Bitterness is cancer – it eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure.

I feel like I just grabbed a big juicy worm with a right sharp hook in the middle of it.

Not to expose your true feelings to an adult seems to be instinctive from the age of seven or eight onwards.

I think love is one of the purest things you can sing about. One of the best things you can sing about.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

Anger is like those ruins which smash themselves on what they fall.

A letdown is worth a few songs. A heartbreak is worth a few albums.

The once all-powerful ruler of Iraq was found in a hole, and now sits in a prison cell.

The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.

I mean, I feel like you get more bees with honey. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated in my life.

It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

Science never makes things that do not have to do with what we feel, by which I mean what we want and what we fear.

To love is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

I went through every emotion with tryna pursue what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon‘ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon‘ quit.

Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

William Maxwell’s my favorite North American writer, I think. And an Irish writer who used to write for ‚The New Yorker‘ called Maeve Brennan, and Mary Lavin, another Irish writer. There were a lot of writers that I found in ‚The New Yorker‘ in the Fifties who wrote about the same type of material I did – about emotions and places.

There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

I’ve always been a singer. I never really decided I was gonna be a singer. It just kind of – I just sung a lot.

You know how big love is? Love is big. love can hold anger; love can even hold hatred.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

Love is only one of many passions.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

There are certain nights you and your image just aren’t in the same bed.

When a man bleeds inwardly, it is a dangerous thing for himself; but when he laughs inwardly, it bodes no good to other people.

I definitely don’t think that money can buy you love. It can buy you affection but certainly not love.

I feel the emotion that life conjures up and the songs I write get me closer to my feelings and realising who I am. It’s a natural process.

Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There’s entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.

One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.

If I cry, it’s because I’m very angry and I can’t do anything about it because I’ve run into a dead end. That’s when the tears would come down.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I feel, as a songwriter, it’s one of the hardest things to do – to sit down and say how you feel.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.

There are so many emotions that you’re feeling, you can get stifled by them if you’re feeling them all at once. What I try to do is take one moment – one simple, simple feeling – and expand it into three-and-a-half minutes.

I cry very easily. It can be a movie, a phone conversation, a sunset – tears are words waiting to be written.

I think my first album opened a lot of doors for me to push the freedom of speech to the limit.

Football is a sad game.

Your feelings so are important to write down, to capture, and to remember because today you’re heartbroken, but tomorrow you’ll be in love again.