Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.

I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.

Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.

When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.

I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.

It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords

I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.

If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write

I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.

Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly -- something like a heavy friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg within our gates.

People don't really change, they just adapt to circumstances.

[Independence Day] was a sweet, sweet job, because it was one of those big surprises.

I guess the subject of race is so natural to me I never think of it as hefty. It's something I talk about and joke about and discuss with my loved ones every day of my life.

Poetry is perfect verbs hunting for elusive nouns.

My buddies wanted to be firemen, farmers or policemen, something like that. Not me, I just wanted to steal people's money!

Without territory, it does not even have the resources to provide detention facilities for prisoners, even if it were interested in holding captured POWs.

Chiropractic has helped keep me injury free - that is half the trick to staying in competition.

It's getting harder just to feel alive.

Barack Obama doesn't think this country should be number one. If it were number 35 it'd be fine with him.