No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

That's something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.

And as a writer, one of the things that I've always been interested in doing is actually invading your comfort space. Because that's what we're supposed to do. Get under your skin, and make you react.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there... and still on your feet.

I don't want to write the song that I wrote yesterday, and I don't want to write the song I'm going to write tomorrow; I only write the music I'm writing now.

The hardest thing to coach is scoring goals and creativity.

Well, I think, you know, the arts are really what - one of the things that make this country strong. We always think it's our economy or our military power, but in fact, I think it's our culture, our civilization, our ideas, our creativity.

One of my great frustrations for 35 years at the paper was the fact I couldn't play a record for the reader when I was writing about an artist. How can you describe the beauty of Emmylou Harris' voice without hearing it, the sensual lilt of a Duane Allman guitar solo without actually hearing it, or the growl of Johnny Rotten without hearing it?