There are all these different areas of specialization. That's it. You have to be a specialist nowadays. There's no other way. I was an artist for a long time, but I was always into being a general practitioner. I did a little of this and a little of that. And nothing got me anywhere. You have to specialize. If you don't specialize, it takes you until you're about fifty years old before anybody notices that you're doing anything at all.

I don't think that the punk sound really became the punk sound until much later. The punk era wasn't really just one musical sound. There are a lot of differences among Television, the Ramones, and the Talking Heads.

Working as a solo artist has given me a confidence that I didn't have with Blondie.

Christina Aguilera is an incredible musician and singer.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

It's scary times for humanity, it seems. But as my octogenarian father tells me, "The world has seen harder times, and the world will survive." The arc of history is long, and the mess we're currently making is just a blip.

I mean I think that Blondie's influence is a little bit in a way more eclectic than those bands.