When people censor themselves they're just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits.

Basically, you're still sitting there using just the muscles of your hand, really. Of one hand, actually. It's another example of the transfer of literacy to making music because the assumption is that everything important is happening in your head; the muscles are there simply to serve the head. But that isn't how traditional players work at all; musicians know that their muscles have a lot of stuff going on as well. They're using their whole body to make music, in fact.

If something is good, you must torture it mercilessly until it is either dead or great.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don't sell that many records.

When I was working with Talking Heads what would happen typically is that they would go out and start playing a track, and I would always run the tape. I always record everything, even a run through where you're trying to get in tune. That's a principle because sometimes when the situation isn't clear interesting things happen, and they are worth listening to again.

The computer brings out the worst in some people.

I'm actually an evangelical atheist, but there is something I recognise about religion: that it gives people a chance to surrender.