As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.

My fear is naked, I'm naked and fearless, And my fear is naked...

I wouldn't want to roll the dice on Kabul by myself, because I really think getting killed is definitely a possibility there. A very good possibility.

I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have.

I'm not a singer. If you've heard any of my records, that's not singing. I have no vocal qualities whatsoever. I've got a lot of enthusisam and I go to the cross, but there's no skill going on there. It's more just intuitiveness.

Retirement in another country is your body is too racked with pain and your hands are too arthritic from the life in the rice patty fields, so you can't work anymore.

Travelling as extensively as I do... the take away for me has made me very humble and very sympathetic to other people's plight in the world and very desirous of being proactive in being part of a solution somehow and not part of a problem. It's made me very patient and very grateful for where I live.