If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

My friends, there are no friends.

I can imagine it’s hard to make a relationship last. I wouldn’t know.

Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.

Well, in order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

Women can’t do everything at the same time, we need to understand milestones in our lives comes in segments.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

‚The Story of Us‘ is about running into someone I had been in a relationship with at an awards show, and we were seated a few seats away from each other. I just wanted to say to him, ‚Is this killing you? Because it’s killing me.‘ But I didn’t. Because I couldn’t. Because we both had these silent shields up.

Marriage is scary to me, man.

No one can be happy who has been thrust outside the pale of truth. And there are two ways that one can be removed from this realm: by lying, or by being lied to.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

The love of the family, the love of one person can heal. It heals the scars left by a larger society. A massive, powerful society.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

Speak low, if you speak love.

The fact is that people are good, Give people affection and security, and they will give affection and be secure in their feelings and their behavior.

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression – all of that is very important.

Life is made of ever so many partings welded together.

Every single one of the guys that I’ve written songs about has been tracked down on MySpace by my fans.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.

Writing is like a ‚lust,‘ or like ‚scratching when you itch.‘ Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made.

A family shares hardships and a connected history.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.

You can’t be in love with a Google search.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

A lot of Jews are great friends of mine.

My friends and I had fun together, but I was more reserved, not at all the life of the party. I would just be the quiet one in the room.

When you really don’t like a guy, they’re all over you, and as soon as you act like you like them, they’re no longer interested.

I know some people might think it odd – unworthy even – for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people’s poet so I write for the people.

Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.

I’ve had no contact with my daughter for years. That’s her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don’t want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

What’s really hard is that you could care a lot for someone and not want to live with him anymore.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

My fans don’t feel like I hold anything back from them. They know whatever I’m going through now, they’ll hear about it on a record someday. They’ll hear the real story. There’s a little bit of lag time. It’s not as instant as going on a gossip blog. But it’s much more accurate.

My father… removed from Kentucky to… Indiana, in my eighth year… It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up… Of course when I came of age, I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher… but that was all.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

You gotta understand: I believe a woman should praise the man, the king. If you holding it down for your woman, I feel like the woman should praise. And the man should praise the queen.

One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

I write all my sermons.

If I think too hard about a relationship, I’ll talk myself out of it.

When people say ‚marriage‘ to me… It’s always a means to an end. Everyone’s so in a rush to define the relationship.

Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.

I write because writing is something that I have to do. And it doesn’t matter whether people like it or not. When I write, I feel the pressure and anxiety that come with taking an empty piece of paper and trying to fill it with something from your own consciousness.

I never fall in love.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

Remember that a gesture of friendship, no matter how small, is always appreciated.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.