No Guru, no method, no teacher — Van Morrison

"The warm look of radiance on your face And your heart beating close to mine And the evening fading in the candle glow This must be what its all about Oh this must be what its all about This must be what paradise is like So quiet in here. So peaceful in here So quiet in here, yeah, so peaceful in here."

"The way you see me walking on Thats why Im telling you in song Theres only one way to get ahead Youve got to give it up instead Start all over again."

"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture."

"They asked me to come to New York to help celebrate Vans induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. I went because I see Van as one of the cats that has kept the faith. Like me, hes always himself — he stays true to the music that means the most to him. It meant a lot to sing "Crazy Love" on stage that evening."

"Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and its all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether its writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, its based on improvisation and spontaneity."

"Where I feel this has cost me is in the personality situation, where youre expected to be a personality. You not only have to write and record, but you have to go out and sell it. Well, Im not a salesman, and Im very bad at selling things. If I had to do that for a living, Id probably be completely broke. I cant sell myself. And I dont even want to. Thats something thats not going to change."

"[explaining to Ernie how April apologized to him] She just showed up at the factory, took off her coat, and begged me to take her. We made love in a way that Ive only ever seen in nature films."

"All men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive."

"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances."

"The intimate rapport with nature is one of the most precious things in life. Nature is indeed very close to us; sometimes closer than hands and feet, of which in truth she is but the extension. The emotional appeal of nature is tremendous, sometimes almost more than one can bear."

"Are people naturally destructive, immoral, predatory and self-seeking, only to be kept in order by harsh laws and fiercely deterrent mandatory sentences? Or are men and women naturally orderly, merciful, humane and bred with a need for justice and mutual aid? Of course these qualities, or defects, are not evenly distributed, and undoubtedly there is much of each in all of us, but when it comes to the law some sort of distinction can be drawn. Are you a Shylock or a Bassanio? Shylock pinned his faith on the words in the contract, the nature of his bond and the duty of the state to uphold the letter of the law regardless of human suffering. Bassanio put another point of view. More important than the sanctity of the law was the plight of the individual parties in the particular case."