"Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints"

"Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again"

"I think San Francisco is the best place in the whole world for an easy life"

"From the time I moved to San Francisco in 1967 to play with the Steve Miller Band, there was a lot of support in the music community for one cause or another, but this one was special because it was put on by people who understood where musicians' hearts are"

"East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State"

"We tend to prefer candidates that don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco"

"I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco"

"I move between San Francisco and Paris... I have a wonderful beach house in California"

"We closed the restaurant in New Orleans and brought the entire staff to San Francisco. But we had to go home"

"In 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play"

"When the Chinese first came to San Francisco, they were actually welcomed by the mayor and they had special ceremonies for them-again this is when their colony was very small, only a few Chinese"