When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was fit in, but if you're perpetually an outsider, it gives you a perspective that might have a little more objectivity than people who really feel connected to their social environment in which they grow up.

If you make a record, you should ask yourself, 'Did it make someone cry, in a good way, not a bad way?' There should almost be subjective emotional criteria for evaluating work, instead of just profitability.

For me to speak out against the war in Iraq, you know - most of my fans are lefties anyway, so I don't really get much flack for it.

When you say 'failure,' that seems really dramatic, but a lot of failure is just really depressing and mundane. I remember the first time I ever played a concert in Italy. I played a venue that held 900 people, and I think five people showed up. It wasn't a big, 'John Carter of Mars' type failure. It wasn't dramatic; it was just depressing.

There's something about the human brain, that it actually has a predilection towards negativity, which served us really well when we lived in an environment that was very threatening.

I just have to remind myself that my daily quotidie in life has almost nothing to do with any aspect of my professional life as a public figure.

The demise of the monolithic record industry has been, for a lot of people, really liberating and emancipating.