Words of Jeff Buckley ~~

"There's no time for hatred, only questions: What is love, where is happiness, what is Life, where is peace? When will I find the strength to bring me release?"

"I'm only here for this moment."

"The welts of your scorn, my love, give me more. Send whips of opinion down my back, give me more."

"Feel no shame for what you are."

"The sea of fools has parted for us. There's nothing in our way, my love. Don't you see, don't you see? You're just the torch to put the flame to all our guilt and shame, and I'll rise like an ember in your name."

"All I want to do is love everyone."

"It's never over, my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder. It's never over, all my riches for her smiles when I slept so soft against her... It's never over, all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter. It's never over, she is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever."

"It's all about love. Don't ever let anything be more important. It's love love love." (These were his last words, said as he was wading into his death.)

"I don't think about my responsibility as a musician in terms of any kind of religious significance. I don't have any allegiance to an organized religion; I have an alligience to the gifts that I find for myself in those religions. They seem to be saying the same thing, they just have different mythologies and expressions, but the dogma of religions and the way they're misusued is all too much of a trap. I'd rather be nondenominational, except for music. I prefer to learn everything through music. If you want divinity, the music in every human being and their love for music is pretty much it. It's the big indication of their spirituality and their ability to love and make love, or feel pain or joy, and really manifest it, really be real. But I don't believe in a big guy with a beard on a throne, telling us that we're bad; I certainly don't believe in original sin. I believe in the opposite of that: you have an Eden immediately form the time you are born, but as you are conditioned by your caretakers and your surroundings, you may lose that original thing. Your task is to get back to it, so you can claim responsibility for your own perfection." (I adore that quote!)

"I want to live my life playing music so that we can be immersed in it. In order to learn how deep it goes, you have to be in it."

"People talk all day in a practical way, but real language that penetrates and affects people and carries wisdom is something different. Maybe it's the middle of the afternoon and you see a child's moon up in the sky, and you feel like it's such a simple, pure, wonderful thing to look at. It just hits you in a certain way, and you point it out to a stranger, and he looks at you like you're weird and walks away. To speak that way, to point out a child's moon to a stranger, is original language, it's the way you originate yourself. And the cool thing is, if you catch people in the right moment, it's totally clear. Without knowing why, it's simply clear. That sort of connection is very empirical. It comes from the part of you that just understands immediately. All these types of things are gold, and yet they are dishonored or not paid attention to because that kind of tender communication is so alien in our culture, *except* in performance. There's a wall up between people all day long ,but performance transcends that convention. If pop music were really seen as a fine art or if fine art were popular, I don't know what the hell would happen-- this wouldn't bee the same country, because if the masses of people began to respect and really open to fine art, it would bring about a huge shift in consciousness."

"Hearing a song is like meeting somebody. A song is something that took time to grow and once it's there, it's on its own. Every time you perform it, it's different. It has its own structure, and you have to flow through it, and it has to come through you."

"I think music is prayer. Sometimes people make up prayers and they don't even know it."