When I am seriously composing, sometimes a phrase will come into my head, a catch phrase. When I was writing pop songs for a few years, as a career, separate from my folksinging career, I used to write songs for pop singers.

I started my career at the top and have been working my way downwards ever since.

When I was in Philadelphia during the Depression in 1930 or '31, I got a very sad job as a night watchman in a garage. The cars in the garage had been abandoned by their owners, since they had lost their jobs and couldn't keep up the payments.

I obtained a job at the Library of Congress. I loved books, so I felt at home. I was going to end up, I thought, majoring in English and teach at the college level.

You have to be a lover of books without expecting more of them than they give - a little pleasure, a little insight, a moment of escape, a deepening of your own humanity. Not much else.

I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.

I was offered a lot of romantic and comedy films.

My view has always been that marriage means love, and an excellent way of describing your love for another person is to make that permanent commitment.