The young have to kill the old. The young, if they want to achieve their own platform, have to diminish the reputations of the ones that have gone before. That's how life works.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of making music is to get it heard by as many people as possible.

I still never get recognized. Small, bald white guys like myself - we all kind of look the same.

I saw people around me who were falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism and substance abuse. It's seductive because alcohol is amazing and drugs are amazing, they work so well.

Music can always serve a role in people's lives when it's emotional and warm and inviting and beautiful.

Everyone feels awkward, everyone feels uncomfortable, everyone gets older, everyone gets lonely, everyone gets sick, everyone eventually dies. You’re at the Aspen Ideas Fest, and you have these really smart, really accomplished people who pretend like they’ve somehow figured out a way to bypass the human condition. We live in this culture where there are so many things that want us to pretend that we’re not truly human.

I wanted to have a title that wasn't in English so that someone in France, for instance, could ask for 'dix-huit' or the someone in Japan could ask for 'juhachi.'