A dreamer of pictures, I run in the night: you [can] see us together, chasing the moonlight – my cinnamon girl.

I even go as far as to think that in the plan of things, the natural plan of things, that the rockets and the satellites, spaceships, that we’re creating now are really… we’re pollinating, as a universe, and it’s part of the universe. Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.

- Neil Young in “Legend of a Loner”, an interview with Adam Swetting in Melody Maker; 7th September 1985 [source]

Omemee’s a nice little town. Sleepy little place. I remember this one guy, Reel. Skinny Reel used to have this great little shop – it’s still there – and there used to be all these pansies out in these wooden boxes. The sidewalk was pretty wide and you’d go walkin’ along and there’d be all these boxes of pansies, the colors were so great… walkin’ through, y’know, and it’s all happening. Life was real basic and simple in that town. Walk to school, walk back. Everybody knew who you were. Everybody knew everybody.

- Neil Young in an interview with Jimmy McDonough; specific date unknown

Reference: McDonough, J. (2002). Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. UK: Vintage Press. “Mr. Blue and Mr. Red”, p.42.

See also: “I really don’t have a yearning to return to Canada…” ; “I feel a kind of pulling from the area where I remember things as a kid…”

[...] I had a sandbox and it was all full of turtles. Then I’d let ‘em out or forget about ‘em – which has sometimes been my history with pets.

- Neil Young in an interview with Jimmy McDonough; specific date unknown

Reference: McDonough, J. (2002). Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. UK: Vintage Press. “Mr. Blue and Mr. Red”, p.42.

It’s my roots [but] I really don’t have a yearning to return to Canada – although I might someday. To me, Canada is my family, where I grew up, memories of bein’ young and bein’ open to ideas. And then tryin’ to get outta Canada because it was limiting. [...] Once you get [to the United States] you find out how beautiful Canada is and what it has to offer – natural resources that are awe-inspiring. So I’m proud to be Canadian – but I don’t let it hold me back. Part of the planet, not part of the nation.

- Neil Young in an interview with Jimmy McDonough; specific date unknown

Reference: McDonough, J. (2002). Shakey: Neil Young’s Biography. UK: Vintage Press. “Mr. Blue and Mr. Red”, p.37-38.

See also: “Omemee’s a nice little town…” ; “I feel a kind of pulling from the area where I remember things as a kid…”

In the mountains [and] in the cities, you can see the dream. Look around you: has it found you? Is it what it seems?

There’s a world you’re living in: no one else has your part. All God’s children in the wind: take it in and blow hard.

The sky is blue and so is the sea. What is the color, when black is burned?

Go to the country, take the dog: look at the sky without the smog.
See the world laugh at the farmers feeding hogs.
Eat hot dogs.

See the sky about to rain, broken clouds and rain.
Locomotive, pull the train, whistle blowing through my brain.
Signals curling on an open plain, rolling down the track again.