All I've ever wanted to do was create freedom.

I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me.

Freedom is...the right to write the wrong words.

Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We were both aware of that, I know.

I'd never had people drive me around, and then all of a sudden, if a car didn't come, I'd say, "Where's my car?"

I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written Just Kids had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

I think really that's just the basic Christian lesson that sometimes takes us years and years to understand - have equal concern for another human being as you have for yourself or perhaps even more concern for another human being than you have for yourself.