I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn’t any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That’s my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs.
I’d harbored hopes that the intelligence that once inhabited novels or films would ingest rock. I was, perhaps, wrong.
I love women, I think they’re great.
How could you even dream or think something of someone who is as uncommercial as I am?
It’s just a temporary thing.
Please don’t set me free Death means a lot me.
You know, some people got no choice, and they can never find a voice, to talk with that they can even call their own. So the first thing that they see, that allows them the right to be, why they follow it, you know, it’s called bad luck...
I think it’s important that people don’t feel alone.
I think it’s pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.
I don’t think I’m in any position to call myself a martial artist. I’m a student of the martial arts.
I’ve gone out with my shotgun. This is hunting country out there. You better run.
I never liked the Beatles. I thought they were garbage.
Research, research, research. It means everything.
Music is an amazing thing. I don’t know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start.
One thing I’ve often thought is that I never want to tell anybody else what to do. It’s hard enough to figure out what I want to do.
To debate political objectives, views, and goals is the most American thing conceivable.
When critics ask you if you feel vindicated by other critics – I didn’t like critics then, and I don’t like them now. There you go. I’ve always been outside the mainstream, and it stayed that way.
The gay people know where I’m at. Straight people may not know where I’m at, but they find it kind of interesting when they show up and see what is sitting around them.
I write whatever shows up. That’s good enough for me. I’m part of the first generation that wants to still do original material and not tour around as an oldies act.
As you practice things, you get better. I mean I’ve worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is “discipline,” focus. I’m always working at it, but I’m not always successful.
It’s fun to be in a small club and to be able to look somebody right in the eye and watch them just freak. Then it’s fun to be in front of thousands of people and watch a couple of hundred freaking out of their minds.