I wanted to get a job as a gynecologist, but I couldn't find an opening.

Sometimes, when I was really loaded, I'd sit on the floor and sort out every nut and bolt in the house. It was just sheer insanity. And often there'd be speed in the cut, so I was a speed freak, too.

Professional soldiers are people who die for a living.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

In my neighborhood - West 121st Street in New York, "white Harlem" - there were only two drugs: smack and marijuana. By the time I was 13, some friends and I were using marijuana fairly regularly. The Reefer Madness myth was still very strong then, but I'd been into jazz and those lyrics included so many casual references to pot that it was completely demystified for me.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.