I generally write music first and then hum out the vocal. Sometimes I'll take a phrase that I use as a placeholder and just write around that.

It seemed like, in the early '80s, there was just a moment where there was suddenly no specific notion of what a rock band could be or what a song could be.

I started wanting to inject more colorful chord phrasings from the music I actually grew up on, which was Hendrix, Rolling Stones, and stuff like that.

It sounds a little cliché, but I wanted to capture some of the feelings or sounds that I heard when I listened to music that actually took me places.

A lot of the bands I loved, I didn't know where they came from or where they were going.

Everything I'm doing musically is for its own sake. I'm recording at my house, trying really hard to write songs with a four-track tape recorder.

I'm trying to play guitar every day. I think I have a gift, and I've not been nurturing it for a long time. So I'm trying to pick it back up.

No one can attain moksha by pushing away others with contempt. So beware!

I am particularly pleased to see that the Bendheim Center for Finance is thriving.

I've got this thing where I always kind of diss the older stuff and favor the newer stuff. I mean, it's not just my thing; every artist or musician is like that, I guess.

When you write about real life, there's always a chance that somebody involved is going to see it and get upset.

We have to learn to adapt to people and changes. Change is good.

You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.

I deal with guys in their 20s and early 30s who are presidents of companies, who are movie directors.

Tomorrow morning the critic will be gone, but the writer will still be there facing the blank page. Nothing matters but that he keep working.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.