I think a bigger difference with social media is going to be things like the impact Instagram will have for historians. For the longest time, we had no images of the past. And then when we had the advent of the camera, we had a record of the things people chose to photograph, which, for a while, were portraits of your family, a new building we built, or a really big horse. Well now we have images of everything. That will be the biggest difference I think - that we will have a visual record of this reality in a way that will be completely covered.

[On political correctness:] Any intended message mattered less than the received message, and every received message could be interpreted in whatever way the receiver wanted.

Styx and The Stones may break my bones but 'More than Words' will never hurt me

Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable.

Because I'm 44, I feel kind of lucky that I lived through this period where I started my career where there was no Internet at all, and now when I finish it, there will be nothing but the Internet.

People are more interested in reading bombastic ideas, whether they're positive or negative. Part of me has sort of lost interest in doing criticism because of that. I've always realized that criticism is basically autobiography. Obviously in my criticism, it's very clear that it's autobiography, but I think it's that way for everybody.

I hate the point where you have to get off the ladder, or get back on. I don't know if that's a fear of heights, or literally a fear of falling. I want to be afraid to fall. That seems like a good fear.