My first car, I got it in an auction at my temple. It was an '86 Volvo that I got for 500 bucks, and then wound up throwing $10,000 into the stereo system and put TVs in the foot rests. It was the most ridiculous Volvo you'd ever seen, but I had never had money before and I was out of my mind.

I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom's family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car - it was the late sixties - and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.

My parents were what I like to call proper musical fans. Lots of Sondheim was played in the car.

I grew up listening to show tunes in the back of the car.

People who have car collections - I never understood that. I always thought that was unnecessary. It's not beautiful, it's not creative. It's just showing how much money you've got.

My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

The car has become the carapace, the protective and aggressive shell, of urban and suburban man.

Mass transportation is doomed to failure in North America because a person's car is the only place where he can be alone and think.

I like the guitar better these days. I like the bass, too, but it's hard to fit a bass amp in a small car.

I want to let my friend Buster know that I would like to have dinner with him tonight. Does Buster work at home? Then how likely is he to have his cell phone on? Is he one of those people who only turns on his cell when he's in his car? I hate that.