I don't think in terms of results at all. I think: what next insanity can I shock the world with?

Critics can't even make music by rubbing their back legs together.

I've always loved songwriting, and I vowed to be a songwriter like Cole Porter when I was only 9 years old.

All right, I am often brash, rude and brutally direct. Someday I'm going to die and I don't have time to toe-dance around the periphery of hatred.

It would be hypocritical of me to take issue with anything in questionable taste, seeing that I invented bad taste in films.

As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.

I started with [Leo] Tolstoy and I was overwhelmed. Tolstoy writes like an ocean, in huge, rolling waves, and it doesn't look like it was processed through his thinking. It feels very natural. You don't question whether Tolstoy's right or wrong. His philosophy is housed in interrelating characters, so it's not up for grabs.