Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

In a way, we are magicians. We are alchemists, sorcerers and wizards. We are a very strange bunch. But there is great fun in being a wizard.

I could walk away from anyone I ever knew, but I can't walk away from you.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown For the Pennsylvania we never found For the promises our teachers gave If we worked hard If we behaved So the graduations hang on the wall But they never really helped us at all No they never taught us what was real

When I was 19, I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.

I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. ... I'm probably writing music now for the same reason as I started writing songs when I was 14-to meet women. ... If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings. ... My songs are like my kids.

Forced to recognize our inhumanity, our reason coexists with our insanity. And though we choose between reality and madness, it's either sadness or euphoria.