As a solo artist, I just felt cemented in front of the mike stand. There was very little time to play with the audience and be a band member

I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.

Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.

Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.

When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.

I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.

It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords

I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.

If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write

Hope gives happiness.

A scholar’s pen is more valuable than a warrior’s sword.

Even Napoleon had his Watergate.

My job is not to save 'The Wheel of Time', to fix 'The Wheel of Time', or anything like that. My job is not to screw it up.

I will omit but I will not distort.

It's funny, particularly when you're a writer and you're doing well, you have that sense of like, "Oh! My view of the world is the one that's going to be published."

Lansens is a willing storyteller.... As a writer, she desires a particular kind of reader, one who wants above all to be transported--who might sit at her knee, the hearth.

Even if you're the worst writer in the world, at least you'll have the evidence.

The best conversation with Stanley Kubrick is a silent one: you sit in a theatre and watch his films and you learn so much.

It is fatal to be appreciated in one's own time.