Quotes from Rod McKuen

The gifts that one receives for giving are so immeasurable that it is almost an injustice to accept them.

I was tired. I peaked. I left when I was on top. One year, I did 280 concerts.

I can't understand people who give up and commit suicide. If I have a bad day, I figure tomorrow will be better. And even if it isn't, at least it isn't any worse.

I cannot speculate on what our cluttered mind will save- sleepy Sundays, or a nosebleed after love. I know only the dying heart needs the nourishment of memory to live beyond too many winters.

If you love somebody, tell them.

Love is a sweet thing caught a momentand held in a golden eye.

Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it.

It happens just because we need to want and to be wanted too, when love is here or gone to lie down in the darkness and listen to the warm.

I went back to look for you.Not understanding the language of hello, I thought I'd speak it just the same.

It seems to me that it's every man's obligation to make what contribution he can. You live each day as best you can. That, to me, is what makes life interesting.

People are not born bastards. They have to work at it.

I try not to put messages in my songs. My only message is man's communication with his fellow man. I want to narrow the gap of strangeness and alienation.

I felt that some of my work was OK. If I could do it over, I'd do better.

People often say 'I live for my art.' Bullshit! If you are given a talent it's to be used. It's not in the private domain.

Do not ask the definition of a friend. He/She is that one without whose company death and dying set in earlier and living is made more pleasurable.

Never fear being alone, because you never are.

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen

Loving is the only sure road out of darkness, the only serum known that cures self-centeredness