For years, I never really pondered how I came to be a writer from where I came from.

The difference of human being behind the guy on the page is in writing, I'm no longer conscious of personal repercussions because for that moment they don't exist. At times, I tell myself, Well, I can always go back and change that or take it out, and I find out that I rarely do. Couple little things here and there: Do unto others. Be a good scout. With all the ironies that entails, I go by that. That's a good way to live.

I've gone more than 40 years without having to use an alarm clock or go to an office. At this point, I don't think I'd be capable of not writing. I don't think I could deprive myself of that sky. It would be like putting an animal in a cage.

People speaking into handheld devices while they walk down the street and saying to the device, "I'm walking down the street now." People are enslaved. I was just up in the country for a few days last week and it was great: no television, no telephone, no nothing. I walked through the woods, sat around, smoked. And it was lovely. I think the desire to be free has mutated, and we now live in an era when the slaves celebrate their slavery - this whole corporate concept of being part of a "team" at work.

The older you get, the more you live with ghosts.

The things I wanted to be when I was a kid were an archeologist, because of dinosaur bones; a garbage man, because they got to ride on the side of the trucks; and a writer.

Joe Bonomo has written a fine book: a book not only about a band or times passed, but also about the rare virtue of endurance.