It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent.

I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.

I wish I had appreciated my youth - I should have worn tighter clothing when I could have!

I feel we all have the obligation, myself. I want to live in a more humane, civilized society, and I feel like the only way we're going to achieve that is if we all take it upon ourselves. I just wish we could be a more caring society. I feel like we're social Darwinists who believe that everyone has to make it on their own. But the reality is that we all don't start out on the same footing.

Poetry comes alive to me through recitation.

I've walked these streets, in a carnival of sights to see. All the cheap thrill seekers, the vendors & the dealers, they crowded around me. Have I been blind? Have I been lost, inside myself and my own mind? Hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen? I've walked these streets, in a spectacle of wealth & poverty. In the diamond market, the scarlet welcome carpet that they just rolled out for me.

I've raised my daughter with no television.