Quotes from Dan Hill

Our house is a constant mayhem of music, noise, socializing and business. It vibrates life, as a house should.

Ringside seats mean you hear the breaking of ribs, the splattered cartilage of what was once the boxer's nose, the dislocation of the jaw, the horrifying 'ugggh' that the boxer utters milliseconds after receiving a crushing left hook to the solar plexus or kidneys or head.

Songs sometimes are so connected to the sociology of the time.

Hit songs are mysterious and slippery beasts; few artists have a lock on them. This means that many people, like me, have become fans of songs rather than fans of artists.

Most of my friends in Nashville - almost all of them - seem to have had hits in the '70s, either as artists or songwriters or producers.

So many songwriters peak in their early 20s because they're living off their passions.

I missed my father so much when he died that writing about his life and mine was a way of bringing him back to life and getting me to sort of understand more about him and what made him the father, the husband and the man that he was, and how that made me the man, husband and father that I am.

Some stresses are unavoidable - it's just part of life. One of the things I do to avoid stress is not work with people that I don't really like or drive me crazy.

When you think of bike couriers, you think of hyper speed. They get paid by how fast they can drop stuff off. The faster you go, the more chances you take. And the more chances you take, the greater the war between cyclists and cars.

In the music world, concerts unfold strictly according to plan. But, as I'd been finding out, in the book world, things keep changing by the second.

One of the things I did to make myself feel better is that I kicked up my running even more. I knew that I had to stay active, that I had to keep living as if my life was actually going to unfold naturally because when you stop, when you freeze, and you think about it, that's when the demons come and can drag you down.

I never go on a run when I don't think of my dad, where I don't think about how powerful his legs were and what happened because, unfortunately, he didn't take care of himself.

The stuff I write I'm very proud of, but I'm smart enough to know I'll never get on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' next to Elvis Costello.

You get your heart stomped by the opposite sex, and you're hurting so badly that you write 'Sometimes When We Touch.' But then what happens when you've been married for 25 years? You can't rely on those emotional male-female roller coasters. You have to start using your imagination and the powers of empathy more.

You succeed and accomplish and accomplish; the problem is when you stop, you become depressed because you could never do enough.