You've always got to remember, rock and roll's never been about giving up. For me, for a lot of kids, it was a totally positive force... not optimistic all the time, but positive. It was never--never--a bout surrender.

I leave pansies, the symbolic flower of freethought, in memory of the Great Agnostic, Robert Ingersoll, who stood for equality, education, progress, free ideas and free lives, against the superstition and bigotry of religious dogma. We need men like him today more than ever. His writing still inspires us and challenges the 'better angels' of our nature, when people open their hearts and minds to his simple, honest humanity. Thank goodness he was here.

I think when you're a child, you just cling to the basics, which is the basic story of Jesus and the crucifixion and hell and eternal punishment and the flames. This was all stuff that was - forget when you're young.

The Jersey Shore is the kind of place where the policeman has a little cottage that might have been in the family for years and many other people call home.

I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream.

We're gonna play some pool, skip some school, act real cool, stay out all night, it's gonna be alright.

I don't write demographically. I don't write a song to reach these people or those people.