I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one.

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

If you've gotta think about being cool, you ain't cool.

True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you ; you just grow into each other

Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.

You don't find a style. A style finds you

Were knowledge all, what were our needTo thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

The service [Jesus] gave to humanity was given even when we least merited that sacrifice. There is a joy in service that transcends emotional temporariness.

We now live in a world where the only thing to have is success, but failure is marvelous. It's fertiliser, it's like living fertiliser, because you're forced on yourself.

Passion is needed for any great work, and for the revolution, passion and audacity are required in big doses.

Mistakes will be made, make no mistake

The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him.

I am an interpreter of interpretations

I support building a soccer stadium in the District of Columbia, and I support investing public dollars to get it done.

I'm kind of pinching myself in the morning. Like, wait, you really did pray to have a body of work that stays diversified and interesting. And I have it!

Everyone loves a good singsong, so we all do a bit of karaoke or something.