Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.

Just as not all popular albums are wonderful, not all wonderful albums are popular.

You didn't have to be a huge rock star; you just had to do well enough to continue doing what you wanted to do. It wasn't about hitting the jackpot, it was about sustainability.

Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day.

I really believe in the power of music - and I mean literally the power of musical tones - to rearrange the way you can think.

Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

There's no glamour in Nirvana, no glamour at all, in fact.

There's a whole apparatus for indie bands now, but back in the eighties it was just getting built. The early people really took it on the chin.

Nine Inch Nails' sound is dominated by clanging synths and sardonic, shrieking vocals.

I have this theory, bands with enigmatic lyrics attract crazies.

As a journalist, I'm not supposed to be the subject, but as an author, I'm fair game - another ingredient in the media soup.

Believe you can and you will be halfway there.

A bad song you can't forget is called an earworm. The way to get rid of an earworm is to deliberately remember an equally awful song.

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass make love work when they have to bear their young. I am sick with envy of them.

Human beings know a lot of things, some of which are true, and apply them. When we like the results, we call it wisdom.

NEVER SURRENDER DREAMS If we are to be who we are; if we are to accomplish great things; then we must learn the heart's most essential rule: NEVER SURRENDER DREAMS

When we honestly ask God the 'why' question, He doesn't give us answers as much as He gives us Himself.

There is no stability without solidarity and no solidarity without stability.

For a time they confronted each other like two mute unspeaking forts.

I'm definitely preoccupied by thinking I'm just a biological thing. I want to feel that there's more, but so often I'm reminded of how we're just like baboons, basically.