In a world that's ugly and a lie, it's hard to even want to try.

I had no allusions of radio success. I just loved being in studios. I was having fun and in that sense I now feel a lot like I did when I did that record.

When I go to Japan and do shows I play for 1,000 to 1,500 people. I like a lot about Japan. Their popular culture and mass commercialization appeals to me.

I figured if the plane goes down, I'll go with a great genius and will always have my name connected with his.

There are things that I value now that I didn't when I first went over there, like Zen Buddhism, which has become part of my life over the last couple years.

It became a question of do I want to be on a label where it could take three years to put out a record instead of putting out three records over the same period of time on my own.

Wavering and burning like a golden lie.

It wasn't so much that I had to leave to make it in the music business as I was curious to be out on my own and sort of explore. I never felt that where I was ever influenced my songwriting.

You're laughing at everything that's bringing me down.

They're not your words, but you're reciting the lines.

I believe in nature instead of God.

I'll fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is grief and die if my time comes...But I will not let anyone use me against my will.

From politics, it was an easy step to silence.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, you absolutely, positively do have the power to change.

The waterfront without the Ferry Tower would be like a birthday cake without a candle.

Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder sister, or a truer friend?

Ever since I was in my teens I had plans at one point in my life to write a novel.

I do a lot of revising. Certain chapters six or seven times. Occasionally you can hit it right the first time. More often, you don't.

I take medication every day for mental illness and depression and don't feel bad about it.

Giving is the insured way of getting.

With photography, I like to create a fiction out of reality. I try and do this by taking society's natural prejudice and giving this a twist.