I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

The song Venus de Milo, the whole subject of it is Love is a drug.

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.

You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos.

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.

Everybody's out trying to be commercial. I'm not trying to be anything, really.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

If the landscape of human emotion were to exist in country, it would be in Italy." ~Lisa Fantino/Amalfi Blue

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Love what you do and do what you love, otherwise you will become unhappy and self-defeating.

You don't stay married for 35 years by accident. I think that that's willful and intentional and something that both people really want.

Life is like a roller coaster. I like the ups and downs. Life is like a roller coaster with many ups and down. The faster the better. I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

Happiness depends on how you accept, understand and surrender to situations.

The first distinction among men, and the first consideration that gave one precedence over another, was doubtless the advantage of beauty.

Once I had defined myself as a compositional drummer, I thought, "Well, I want to be an improvisational drummer."

I have never had time for the idea of searching. Whenever I wanted to express something, I did so without thinking of the past or the future.

It's too late to apologize for. I have already forgiven you.