Physical pain is my friend. I pursue it every night for four hours.

If you're up there [on stage] thinking about what you're doing, you're just not there and it's not going to happen.So trying to learn how to overcome those - which is a normal thing to do. You're in front of a lot of people. People are going to get very self-conscious. So you have to learn to sort of overcome that tendency towards self-consciousness and just blow it wide open. And you jump in and join all those people that are out there enjoying what you're doing together.

I met a girl and we ran away, I swore I'd make her happy every day. And how I made her cry, two faces have I.

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold We swore blood brothers against the wind I'm ready to grow young again

Most artists I know consider themselves to be phonies, along with the feeling that there's something that you're doing is essential, essential to communicate, and deeply, deeply real.

I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along.

There's an opera out on the turnpike, there's a ballet being fought out in the alley.