I had to get a driver's license and drive to St. Louis to find the punk-rock scene that was happening there. And there was a punk-rock scene. It was sweet. It was real. It was like everywhere else in the county. It was a handful of people who were feeling the same pull, and, of course, it was like the Island of Misfit Toys in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer [1964]. Just the freaks, the fags, the fat girls, the unbelievable eccentrics .

Our generation was supposed to be about trying to deal with nuclear concerns and environmental disasters.

I knew [Kurt Cobain] and his daughter. And Courtney [Love] came and stayed at my house. R.E.M. worked on two records in Seattle and Peter Buck lived next door to Kurt and Courtney. So we all knew each other. I reached out to him with that project as an attempt to prevent what was going to happen.

If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well.

The only thing to fear is fearlessness.

A wise man once said, 'The skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.'

The whole point of the punk-rock thing was that "We're not special. We just have a voice."