What I love about making albums in the 21st century is that so few people buy albums! I can make an album without any commercial concerns whatsoever.

I think a lot of self-importance is a product of fear. And fear, living in sort of an un-self-examined fear-based life, tends to lead to narcissism and self-importance.

It just seems like musicians want to sell a few records and put out a perfume line, and I think it's so sad that there are so many musicians who don't want to change the world.

I'm sure most people have this experience: when you're young you drink, you do drugs, you stay up late, and there are no consequences.

These new metal bands are going out, getting drunk and going to strip clubs, and they'll be doing the same in thirty years. There isn't even an interesting self-destructive quality to it . . . it's just dumb.

Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it's pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It's easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe

That's the one thing you wake up with every day: How long have I got left? And that's the saddest thing in the world, because you have this absolute realization that everything you love you're going to have to let go of and give up. I look at my daughter and I think, There's going to be a point where I'm not going to be around for her. Even the thought of that breaks my heart.