If you have a counterculture band, you put a name on it, you call them beatniks, and you can sell something - books or bebop. Or you label them as hippies and you can sell tie-dyed T-shirts.

A lot of poets too live on the margins of social acceptance, they certainly aren't in it for the money. William Blake - only his first book was legitimately published.

I didn't get my degree at NYU; I got it later, they gave me an honourary one.

I think of poets as outlaw visionaries in a way.

When I get depressed, or anything, I go 'think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!' So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?

If anyone tells you there is only one way, their way, get as far away from them as possible, both physically and philosophically.

It's hard to get lost if you don't know where you're going.

The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.

Each one of us is a set of shifting molecules, spinning in ecstasy.

The counterculture is always repackaged and made into a product. It's part of America.

I prefer to be subcultural rather than mass-cultural. I'm not interested in hitting the vein of the mainstream.

I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water.

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.

Society will not crumble if men take a turn at the dishes.

This was but a prelude

You give me things too, " he said in a hushed voice as he bit off the

Character is the backbone of our human culture. Music is the flowering of character.

I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know, and I'll fight like a wildcat until they nail the lid of my pine box down on me.

Remember for just one minute of the day, it would be best to try looking upon yourself more as God does, for She knows your true royal nature.

A man like me cannot but believe that this earthquake is a divine chastisement sent by God for our sins.

The best I can say is that it's better for me to write about despair and darkness than to be incapable of getting off the sofa. It's better to write about suicide than to contemplate it too heavily.