There we were all in one place, a generation lost in space.

I'm glad that my music has helped other people as it's helped me. It makes me glad that I did what I did with my life.

There's enough ugliness - you know, we got wars going on and people dying and sickness and everything. We don't need to have our art be ugly. But it is, in a lot of it. And these people justify this crap by saying, "Oh we're just representing what's out there, man". Basically, you're making it worse and number one, the artist's job is to elevate people and to lift people up and to give them a place to go, something to hold on to.

I developed this fantasy world. I found that that was much more fun and more interesting and exciting than real life was to me. Then, once I got the guitar going when I was a teenager, I set sail for the direction I've been in my whole life.

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to.

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was dry. Good old boys drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this'll be the day that I die.

That's the hard thing - getting started. You get started for a long time until you finally get to this point where people call you an icon or whatever they call you. It's nice. Suddenly the audience is with you more and they help you along and it's not so much that you have to do everything.