I was the only person I'd ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles.

The different social forces that affected my parents' lives or my friends' lives or I saw around me became essential for me to write about.

I was real good at music and real bad at everything else.

God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.

In the early years, I found a voice that was my voice and also partly my father's voice. But isn't that what you always do? Why do kids at 5 years old go into the closet and put their daddy's shoes on? Hey, my kids do it.

You can hide beneath the covers and study your pain, make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain. Waste your summer praying in vain, for a savior to rise from these streets.

I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?