I've never been an optimist.

I think the question that nobody wanted to deal with is the question they’re posing: did my kid die in vain? Because the answer is too awful.

Maybe that afternoon was the closest I ever felt to Bob: his eyes were as old as God, and he was fragile as a winter leaf.

Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men – bring them softness, teach them how to cry.

During the ‘ballad’ years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.

I’d hear a tune in my head and the words would come. And then, very suddenly it just stopped. It seemed too stilted to try and learn how to write a song, to go to round robins and to learn things from other people on how to write a song. So I just stopped and did other things.

Living so fully, I can’t imagine what any drug could do for me.

I first saw Bob Dylan in 1961 at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village. He was not overly impressive. He looked like an urban hillbilly, with hair short around the ears and curly on top.

If it’s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?

Some people don’t even notice. “Oh, you sound exactly like you did!” And I say, “OK, if that’s what you want to believe, that’s fine.”