Being a man of taste and sophistication, the 80s were objectively, quantifiably, empirically, diagram-it-on-a-blackboard the worst decade in the history of recorded music.

When L.A.’s schizophrenia between Dreamland and Utopia was becoming socially manifest, the United States, which was always a place, went to war with America, which was always an idea.

a dream is only a memory of the future

Western music is arguably America's greatest contribution to the 20th century, cultural or otherwise.

If I had it to do all over again . . . I wouldn't change a thing.'. . . the final expression of narcissism, the last gesture of self-congratulation.

By the plain form of my delirium I will blast the obstruction of every form around me into something barely called shadow. I sail. I swim to you. I know the water.

In LA, you think you're making something up, but it's making you up.

To me experimental fiction ultimately is about the experiment and I'm not interested in experiments for their own sake.

Is the humanism intuitive or labored over?, the answer is: Yes. It begins intuitively, it becomes the reason for writing the thing, and then it's to be considered and fine-tuned and even calculated.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

For better or worse I'm the writer I am today because of hearing those Dylan records. For better and most certainly not for worse, I'm the person I am today because of hearing Charles.

Religion is a light bulb, created by man to help him to see in the dark.

I'm lucky that most of the time I'm on location in amazing places. Most of the time, I don't need holidays, I just stop working.

Wherever an inferiority complex exists, there is a good reason for it.

No one blames her." "That never matters," said Alec. "Not when you blame yourself.

Jazz is an octopus. It will take whatever it can use and it will work with it.

Sometimes you don't know why you're doing something. You're intuitively following, to see where it leads.

Music is what feelings sound like out loud. I sing songs that speak from my heart. They tell my story, how I feel.

Photography is one big scrapbook of your life.

There's a lot of whiners in every crowd.

At first it was exhilarating but when I realized it wasn't going away, it became scary and claustrophobic. Fame is a weird thing.