Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.

I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought.

When you’re young, the goal is to have a hit. You get a little older and the goal becomes to get to make another record.

Those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone.

I write a lot from instinct. But as you're writing out of instinct, once you reach a certain level as a songwriter, the craft is always there talking to you in the back of your head...that tells you when it's time to go to the chorus, when it's time to rhyme. Real basic craft... it's second nature.

Some people would rather stay ignorant and self-satisfied.

I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.