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

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.

Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.

You've got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.

I grew up with a very big extended family, with a lot of aunts. We had about five or six houses on one street.

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.

It was like Elvis came along and whispered some dream in everybody's ear