I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.

There will always be those people who are just backward and ignorant. There will always be those people. They need somebody to feel superior to.

It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.

I feel I was born with the music coming to me, and that's not something to be wasted.

The money when you're having a hit is great, but money can be taken from you. What can't be taken from you is the talent and the effect your work has.

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.

I gave guitar lessons. I tried to join bands. My mom always said it was obvious that nothing was going to stop me.