I think being jilted is one of life's most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It's happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.

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.

The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.

I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family - and I don't think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.

I play to all people - all colors, all creeds ~ drunk, sober, everybody.