My particular space has always been quite unique in popular music. I have a background in R&B and hard rock and straight pop, but I never went all the way with any of those genres.

Meditation is certainly not a religion, cult, or spiritual path: it's actually a very basic practice to reduce stress.

The way I sing my songs leads the listener into a place of introspection, a state of mind that can trigger self-healing and the kind of profound rest you cannot get from sleep alone.

I'm probably the most successful Celtic bard of my generation, who projected this style and this image and this casketful of magical songs all around the world.

I think of myself as a poet. I grew up with poetic influences - what I know from my background is the bardic poetry, which came down through oral tradition.

Sometimes the songs just come to me. I don't sit down to write like you'd sit down to make a pair of boots.

Honors and awards are very interesting, and I truly accept them. I have very high regard for what they mean. What they mean is that they're pointing to the work.

My guitar-playing always included bass lines, melody lines, and rhythm-guitar grooves.

Myself and The Beatles thought surely there was a way through our fame and success to bring something to our generation to help chill the future out.

I wasn't perfect, although during the '60s, I may have appeared to be. After all, I was partying away there for awhile. From age 17 to 25, I worked only on the outer man, and I did pretty well, but I needed to go back and work on the inside.

Part of being a pop star is image. I'm told by many of my female fans that I was the poster on their bedroom walls. But if I only had that - the image and the beauty and the curly locks - I would have been a 'normal' pop star, one who comes and goes after one hit record.

I sounded like Bob Dylan for about five minutes, and it was blown out of all proportion.

Some music will make you dance. Other music helps you release tension.

I can't help it: when something strikes me, I write it down.

Publishers and record companies love a broken heart.

I've experimented with so many different sounds, it's difficult to say what the Donovan sound really is, but it's essentially my voice and guitars.

In my time, we didn't know songs could last. All we ever thought of was next Tuesday. You never imagined a future.

In bohemian circles, we were very aware that poetry was missing from popular culture.

Spiritually, I'm a floating entity, but Buddhism is as close as I can get to describing it.

I have always just experimented, and I come from a very ancient, acoustic root. It was very hard to put a finger on me.

I learned that if you wait long enough, you just grow older.

Most people think that I heard Bob Dylan first and got a cap and harmonica. Really, it was Woody Guthrie. He was so influential.

My music translates again and again to younger generations of players because I broke all the rules, and they can break all the rules now, too.

I have to say, post-fame was difficult because it wasn't just fame: it was super-fame of a kind that few have. It was attached to a generation's dreams, and my own personal dreams were mixed up in it, too.