The whole point of American culture is to pick up any old piece of trash and make it shine with more facets than the Hope Diamond.

The whole point of American culture is to pick up any old piece of trash and make it shine with more facets than the Hope Diamond.

Don’t ask me why I obsessively look to rock ’n’ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it’s just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.

Music, you know, true music not just rock 'n' roll, chooses you.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

The real question is what to live for. And I can't answer it. Except another one of your records. And another chance for me to write. Art for art's sake, corny as that sounds.

Nothing ever quite dies, it just comes back in a different form.