I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in late '40s and '50s.

Being big and famous doesn't get you more freedom, it gets you less.

I think that pop, and to some extent rock, are like sport and fashion industry in that they're about the exuberance of youth. That's the sort of subliminal ideology.

I've always liked pop music. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with the avant-garde rock scene, because I think I was sort of swimming the wrong way, really.

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singer who did a bit of percussion.

I find it hard to take rock groups very seriously or treat them with respect. There is something absurd about these gloomy young men getting together and banging away.

I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you really need is a pencil and a piece of paper.

I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.

There's no field of music which doesn't have good ideas.

What keeps me going is a constant sense of disappointment with what I've already done.

In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.

Only the strong soul can accept the truth.

Judicious mothers will always keep in mind that they are the first book read, and the last put aside, in every childs library.

I put myself in front of people who can say yes to me, and I deliver value first.

Girls have got balls. They're just a little higher up, that's all.

Greatness and madness are next door neighbours; and they borrow each other's sugar. You don't get there without the other.

Whatever moisture is left in the popcorn when it gets from harvest to bag to your popper is what's going to determine how well the corn pops.

Some who are too scrupulous to steal your possessions nevertheless see no wrong in tampering with your thoughts.

But it is not for the perfect vase or the polished gem to choose their owners.

Between urine and filth we are born.

A great wave of oppressive tyranny isn't going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty. George Baumler Quotes.