The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.

There is not a sentence in the world that could respectfully do justice to the life and music of Jerry Garcia.

If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?

It's hard to get into Newsweek because, as more of our former intellectual magazines take on a pop focus, if there's no buzz, there's no interest.

I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would have never written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker never would have played anything but swing music. There comes a point at which you have to stand up and say, this is what I have to do.

There's not one Tin Pan Alley song on my record.

I gave up my base in popular culture when I left the Tonight Show.