In this world, I've got no choice: there is nothing left at all; and you don't notice, but that's all right: you don't know what it's like.

It reset and mended my freshly damaged and distorted view of life, and made me recognize that this thing we call music, this primal expression that we reshape and refine and define ourselves with, is the gift I was given. The ability to communicate what others feel but cannot fully express, the passing down and around of songs and stories, from Pete Townshend to Joey Ramone to me, to the audiences who take the time and effort to support our work and give us a way to support ourselves -- I'm thinking this is what I am supposed to be doing.

The blues is something separate from what I do. They connect at certain spots, but blues is different. I wouldn't put it in with what my career has been. That would be a whole separate wing.

There's so many companies that are spending so much money on 17-year-olds... I can't compete with that. I'm not that guy anymore, they can't dress me up and roll me out there and make me look good. I am what I am!

Once you've said it, you can't put it back. So choose your words carefully in heated moments in personal relationships. Anything you say, people have feelings. If you're thinking something, you keep thinking it and it just sort of slides out, it's gonna happen.

I don't like the dislocation of being away for months at a time. It's not conducive to having a life.

I'm 44 now; I feel better than I did when I was 34. I've got more clarity now. I wake up in the morning, and I write my blog, and then I go upstairs, and I work on music. And I do that every day. That's what I do. I don't check in once a week and think, "Oh, I've gotta come up with something now." I'm always writing. I was just in a coffee shop in Chelsea last night, just killing time, waiting for a friend, and I sat and wrote enough for three good songs. I love it. This is my life. It's all I do.