By then I was in Brooklyn and drank my way through that summer. I stopped when I got sick of that and got a job at the Strand bookstore, which was a little better than the tax job.

I think Blank Generation holds up pretty well. You listen to that with headphones and there's a lot going on there with the guitars- it's the product of a lot of fighting.

It was just like Howlin' Wolf. Once you arrive at the point that you understand it, the emotional factor is darker than some of the saddest blues stuff.

I never really followed grunge.

By many peoples' standards, my playing is very primitive but by punk standards, I'm a virtuoso.

Reading music is something that's inherently hateful to me. It makes music like mathematics.

Meanwhile after failing the bar twice, I knew some people in New York and moved here in August '71.

I was coerced into taking piano lessons in the early '50s. It was a quite unpleasant experience.

I started off with the really funky stuff like Ramsey Lewis, Milt Jackson, Kenny Burrell.

After I exhausted the blues thing, I got into jazz.

My playing started to develop through the Miles Davis stuff I was listening to.

We must give people the chance to change.

It amazed me how quickly a lie loses its power in the face of truth.

Do not compromise on the quality and your customers will not negotiate on the price.

Even in the hardest circumstances, dreams can give you the courage to live, and I hope I can share that message with children in need.

I think we're all experiencing climate change. Experience is an effective teacher. It's sometimes a very harsh teacher. So we will be taught about climate change.

I don't like sitting around in my dressing room very much. It feels a lot like theater.

The moment you start thinking it's hopeless, then it is. [But], if you think it's gonna get better, it really does. Life is a test.

I had a period in my life in the '90s where I was definitely young, dumb, and full of even more dumb.

You see, we are here, as far as I can tell, to help each other - our brothers, our sisters, our friends, our enemies. That's to help each other, not hurt each other.

Old Hollywood is just like a desert water in Africa. Hang around long enough and every kind of animal in the world will drift in for refreshments.