And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well.

I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.

It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.

I tell kids, don't trust the media. The media with their emphasis on fame is helping to destroy this country, helping destroy the human race. It's the plug-in drug.

Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

This world is so full of hypocrisy, the only way you can be honest is to be a hermit.

Long live teachers of children, because they can show children how they can save the world.

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.

And why love things you were destined to lose? Why let yourself feel things if the feelings were doomed to die?

Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.

I didn't think; I experimented.

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is greif and die if my time comes...But I will not let anyone use me against my will.

I do engineering, not religion.

It is obvious to any observer that in every western country the increase of importance of public schools has been at least coincident with the relaxation of older family ties.

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.

The book one must read to learn natural sciences is the book of nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart.

Whatever you do, don't whimper, but take the consequences.

Sin is bad in the eye, worse in the tongue, worse still in the heart, but worst of all in the life.