I don't want to make a record like in the '50s or the '60s or the '70s. I want to make a record like today, that`s right now.

Elvis Presley is all there is. There just ain't no more. Everything starts and ends with Elvis. He wrote the book. He is everything to do and not to do in the music business.

Roy Orbison is singing for the lonely, hey, that's me and I want you only.

Elvis is my religion. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now.

My only general rule was to steer away from things I played with the band over the past couple of tours. I was interested in re-shaping the Rising material for live shows, so people could hear the bare bones of that.

I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I.

I didn't know if it would be a successful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter...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...I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't...The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.