You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.

I hate albums that are really happy. When I am really happy, I don't like to hear happy albums, and when I am really sad I don't wanna hear happy albums... and I tend to gravitate towards the lonely and isolated anyway when I write.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

Who'll love Aladdin Sane? Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise.

It's almost a social grace to get into the art world, and I'm very wary of it. Art was good in Berlin in the late '70s - there was a lot more guts to art when the Neo-Expressionists were starting up; it was real slapdash; it has real heart to it - but it seems so cold and heartless in America. It's a buyer's market.

Sits like a man, but smiles like a reptile.