Pop is totally results-oriented and there is a very strong feedback loop.

I think the idea that people walk around to music is very interesting. They are actually creating the soundtrack to their lives as they walk around to it.

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.

A culture is the sum of all the things about which humanity can choose to differ.

In the 1960s, people were trying to get away from the pop song format. Tracks were getting longer, or much, much shorter.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

We're going through this super-uptight era, which I think comes entirely from literacy, actually. It's the result of machines that were designed as word processors being used for making music.