Card players have a saying: "It's all right to play if you keep your eyes on the deck" - which is another way of saving, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Critics don't bother me because if I do badly, I know I'm bad before they even write it. And if I'm good, I know I'm good. I know best about myself, so a critic doesn't anger me.

The best revenge is massive success.

Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.

If I had as many love affairs as I've been given credit for, I'd be in a jar at the Harvard Medical School.

As you may know, I have many good friends in the press who, unfortunately, have thus far refused to identify themselves and go public.

It took me a long, long time to learn what I now know, and I don't want that to die with me.