Songwriting is like ... being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the song won't let you.

We're crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco.

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

I was trying to say something about Christianity, the idea that you have to be tortured to attain heaven. I didn't believe that.

I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40.

In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days.