You can still function as a living ruin.

America is a country born from semi-mythologized blood, glory and acts of selfless patriotic sacrifice.

From those who agonize that they may no longer be able to write off their private jet to someone who doesn't feel like making the three mile hike to the well to get water and carry it back, everyone struggles.

I think hip-hop has definitely brought the black experience to white kids more than the civil rights movement did and more than any teacher's well-intentioned lecture on Martin Luther King did.

I like it better that people aren't throwing stuff at my face and trying to fight me on stage. Like in the '80s, it was just aggravating all the time... I have scars from cigars and cigarettes on me, Bic pens, burns from cigarette lighters, all that.

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things.

I'm 36 and if I met a woman of my own age and married her, I'd also be marrying her former life, her past. It might be OK for some people - I don't want to judge it or anything - but it's not for me. It would destroy my creativity.