My dad was young. He went to work. But he'd been to war. He'd seen some of the world. It wasn't like he was going to be an extensive traveler or something. That didn't seem to be in the nature of - in his nature or in the nature of his parents or many of the folks in my family, really. They were - we had a cousin that went to - off to Brown University. It was like a nuclear explosion took place.

I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I'd still come home at night and write songs.

Sometimes, at night you could hear the whole damn city crying.

The artists we love, they put their fingerprint on your imagination, and on your heart and your soul.

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

It's always felt natural, because I'm generally very comfortable with people.

I can get onstage and cut that off and be superinstinctive. To be a good live performer, you have to be instinctive. It's like, to walk in the jungle, or to do anything where there's a certain tightrope wire aspect you need to be instinctive. And you have to be comfortable at it also.