Many people find Leonard gloomy. I don’t. I find him amusing, perceptive and intelligent. He writes beautiful songs and poems.

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

For me poetry is trying to find the right words that explain what you are thinking and feeling.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

It talks in a way that nothing else does. I think that people who don’t have music are rather sad.

Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I’ve practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity.

Zen seems to me to be about controlling your own mind and developing it into another awareness. There’s a big difference between religion and spirituality.

Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.

I think the Hindus call it samsara. The ripples in the water of your life create ripples in the sand on the sea bed. Those sand ripples create ripples in the water.

I didn’t want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.

I would hate to write for pay.