everybody has a story to tell

I hate it when I go out and I see parents going, 'don't do that', or 'stop doing that' when some kid's just hanging off a staircase or something. There's too much of this, 'don't do that'. The whole thing baffles me.

When I started, they told me I only needed 3 chords and the truth... It turned out I could manage with 2 and some vague ideas.

To me our music is like Jamaican stuff - if they can't hear it, they're not supposed to hear it. It's not for them if they can't understand it.

I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't. ... I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon. ... When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there. ... People have told me songs I've written have changed their life. That's remarkable. That keeps your faith.

I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, 'cause I've got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one... now a British one. I think it'd be pretty good to have an American phrase book.

There is a time to dance to techno and a time not to.