Sure I destroyed my guitar at every concert, but it was okay, because I'd always get a shiny new one the very next day.

A good artist's always got his hand in his zipper.

I've always had a desire to write something and capture people's imagination like Peter Pan had captured mine.

The artist seeks contact with his intuitive sense of the gods, but in order to create his work, he cannot stay in this seductive and incorporeal realm. He must return to the material world in order to do his work. It's the artist's responsibility to balance mystical communication and the labor of creation.

I didn't write about aspects of my public life because that's a small part of my life.

Sometimes you have to abandon your own children for other children.

When we got to the part where we had to improvise an argument in a poetic language, I got cold feet. "I can't do this," I said. "I don't know what to say." "Say anything," he said. "You can't make a mistake when you improvise." "What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?" "You can't," he said. "It's like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another." In this simple exchange, Sam taught me the secret of improvisation, one that I have accessed my whole life.