I am so disconnected from the world of rock 'n' roll. I was always peripheral, partly because of the drug culture. I was not involved in that.

As long as one keeps searching, the answers will come.

I never pretended to be rock star. I would make a lousy rock star. I don't have the right voice for it. I don't have the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" spirit. But the greatest flattery in the last couple of years is being called a "badass" by young singers.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

In other words, it is what I do in the world that matters. When I traveled for three months in the Mideast, the places I wanted to go back to were Turkey and the Gaza Strip. It has to do with what Gandhi said: he found God in the eyes of the poor. Those are the places which were so moving that they were just unbearable.

To love means you also trust.

As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.