When you can no longer differentiate between the insanity spewed onto the blank page, and the madness evident in the all-but shattered mirror...that's when you know you're doing it right.

Because one of the properties of music is to entertain and to, I don't mean this lightly, distract us from the things that pull us down. Music should be not only a source for political ideas but also a source of hope.

We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.

I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.

You and me have a better time than most can dream of, better than the best.

I think making things that aren't necessarily shiny, happy feelings, putting them in that environment is sometimes an easy way to deal with the ugliness. Like, I know that as a kid, that I found - I think I learned this a bit from my mother - that if I could be as warm around strangers, no matter how strange or what different environment I was in, that people tended to be warm back.

I think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That's the only way we'll find solutions.