I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.

Ugly ducklings don't turn into swans and glide off down the lake. Whether your sunglasses are on or off, you only see the world you make.

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources.

Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been there.

I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind.

Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.

Solar power is the last energy resource that isn't owned yet - nobody taxes the sun yet.

It's incredible to see labor unions and environmentalists getting together to stop the corporate mentality that destroys both jobs and the environment.

We can live in fear or act out of hope.

It's always enjoyable to listen to a friend's work, but if it doesn't resonate with you, then you can just appreciate it and it inspires you in its own way.

It doesn't matter what you do...so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away.

If you want your life to stand for peace and kindness, it's helpful to do kind, peaceful things.

How could none of them comprehend the beauty of a human soul, shining in heaven for eternity? Where it would be whole again, as they all had been once in times past?

John Facenda could read a laundry list and make it sound like the Constitution of the United States.

The Church has its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there.

I don't do any vulgar movements.

Any subject is good for opera if the composer feels it so intently he must sing it out.

I've got a penny-ante talent, out of which I try to drum up a living for myself. And what nobody seems to realize is that it's just as difficult to get a bad idea as a good one.

My hole is warm and full of light.

Misplaced hate makes disgrace the races.