You can't be perfect. You can't be the perfect father. You can't be the perfect singer.

I don't know how people do it these days - paparazzi and that kind of thing. That's something I can't even imagine.

When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.

It's important to have a life and spend time outside of those things [music and politics], in order to appreciate what you've achieved as far as just spending time with people you love, and doing things like painting.

Well, maybe it was just that I wasn't going to like anybody because I had to work and I had to explain to my teachers why I wasn't keeping up. I'd fall asleep and things in class and they'd lecture me about the reality of their classroom. I said, 'You want to see my reality?' I opened up my backpack to where you usually keep your pencils. That's where I kept my bills... electric bills, rent... That was my reality.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.

After the Ramones, it was more about new wave for me than punk.