“I didn't have much to say to anybody but kept to myself and my books. With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw it's fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy.”

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.”

“I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week.”

“Playing that music delivered me from the pressures of my life. I played with my eyes closed and found that my backaches ceased and my headaches would go. The response to that rhythm was "My God, this makes me feel good." I never really remembered having that much fun with it before or thought about jazz making me feel good. But, at 46, it suddenly dawned on me that my body had priorities that my mind didn't allow, and I decided to (play Latin/jazz)✱ for myself and started having a helluva fine time.”

“Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.”

“I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.”

“When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.”

“I have 5,000 books in my home, 1,000 of which I feel are close to my heart. They have always shown me the way. Books are my great passion; I could not live without them.”

“Rock music makes me alive, it makes me awake, so that tiredness can touch me and make me say – It's enough, I have earned much popularity.”

“You need me as much as I need you. That makes us equal partners in my book.
Well, your book is just wrong.”