Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.

It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.

Sometimes a little compromise isn't a bad thing. You don't need to be precious about it.

The public so often want to freeze the artist in a moment in time when they were at their peak, and they want the artist to revisit it over and over again as if it was something authentic.

I like to explore a lot of textural, arrangement aspects in the studio.

I don't listen to a lot of music any more and even the people I've loved for years - the Nick Drakes of this world - I can't go back to them and listen to them over and over.

I'm obsessed with books.

I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally.

During the lifetime of Japan I became very neurotic, very paranoid.

For, indeed, everything about is marvelous, and wherever a man turns his gaze he sees the Godhead of the Word and is smitten with awe.

And greed will breed harshness and cruelty.And wealth is a maze to confuse.Once a person is warm and well-suppered, how much of such wealth can they use?

Those who know how to think need no teachers.

I have to warn you that my bedroom isn't the best place to stage an assault on me. It's where I'm at my weakest, with my bed a mere twenty feet away.

All art is someone trying to tell you something.

I would blossom if I were a rose.

The American people do not want people thumbing their nose at the law. It undercuts the very fabric of our society and the system of civil justice and of criminal justice as well.

In heaven, you get right through. In hell, they put you on hold.

A fine morning's killing, ay! All their necks wrung - all dead birds! Once they could fly - fly and swim! Fly and swim! All dead now - and sold cheap in the open market!

It is no coincidence that the words 'trying' and 'dying' are only a few letters apart.