I haven't really spoken to God since I was a boy and I've rediscovered god and prayer in the process and all of that has come together.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

Assuming that all bad girls smoke. I don't think so. I've been around a lot of bad girls who don't smoke, you know, so I think it's easy to put a cigarette into, you know, into anyone's hands and say, well that makes them a bad boy or a bad girl. There are many more creative ways from a writerly point of view to do that.

In the olden days, of course, cigarette companies would pay to have their product advertised in movies and to have actors smoke cigarettes.[Ronald Reagan used to do it.]

I have only one loyalty - to my writing. I never wanted to be the head of a studio or a producer.

There are certainly a lot of sins to be taken on. To take on smoking and movies is a weighty enough thing, I think, and it's one I've experienced, and it's what's caused me to live in-with my voice maimed for the rest of my life.

Fact is we went on to do other things. But we still wanted to do our success like rock'n'roll stars.