Discipline is important as long as you're having a good time. What I always did was I did what I enjoyed, and I think that's why I don't have any grey hairs.

I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way

I have a very beautiful life with great friends and I look forward to waking up every day. Every day is a vacation but every day is a workday. I don't want to take vacations because music is my life and if I escape from music, that's the same thing as death. So a vacation is death to me. Sitting on the beach for a week is my idea of hell. That would kill me.

Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like

I have art. I have music. I have the history, this legacy behind me that I can look up to. This is what I believe in. If you want to call it God or spirituality, that's all up to you. Basically I believe in something that's bigger than myself, and that gives my life meaning.

I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies.

When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way