Anything you throw yourself into, you better get yourself out of.

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

If you've gotta think about being cool, you ain't cool.

True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you ; you just grow into each other

Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.

You don't find a style. A style finds you

Life is problems. Living is solving problems.

It's a way of living, sharing things with people who work with me, and they seem to enjoy it.

We can't make China a friend, but we can behave to make them an enemy.

The more people doubt their own beliefs the more, paradoxically, they are inclined to proselytize in favor of them.

In everything but brains and brawn, women are vastly superior to men. A different race.

Who teaches the soul if not God?

I suppose that as you grow older some sense of an accumulating oeuvre is unavoidable.

If I don't believe it, I don't care.

My younger brother and I have been writing together, mainly for fun, for years, but we've been improvising together since we were kids. Literally.

Never give up searching for the job that you're passionate about.