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.

For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.

When I see the hatred exacted at Mr. Obama - you know, he lowered your taxes, killed your number one bad guy and got your guys out of Iraq - I don't understand why he seems to inflame people so much. You know, unless, unless there's a race problem.

I don't need to have my convictions confirmed by a show of numbers. However, being among people in front of a band leads me to believe that all is not lost, that humans, now and then, can communicate on a higher level than the political and the practical.

When I'm off the road, and I can really control my diet down to the calorie, I juice seven days a week. Every afternoon, whatever I have at hand, beets, carrots, ginger, whatever. I juice, literally, every single day. And on the road, I try to find fresh juice wherever I can.

At times, I feel America is something that I can actually put my arms around, more than a land mass and a Constitution, something far more containable and understandable. I don't exactly know what it is, but at these times I feel completely woven into it.

All my big heroes are literary, writers.