In any performance, you're on stage for two hours, and there's 40 seconds or maybe a whole five minutes where you feel like the whole universe is in place, and you've gone even beyond the universe that you know.

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

I had met Michael Stipe, and he was such a kind person, and extremely understanding, so I asked him if he knew a photographer who would come to Detroit, where I lived, who would be child friendly and who would respect my home. Michael suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One day a knock came at my door, and when I opened it, there was Steven. He's been like a brother ever since.

I always hope that young people will think for themselves and also most importantly, understand that they should judge themselves on their own merit, their good deeds, however simple, to not judge themselves by what they have materially, by what other people think of them, through social media.

I don't know about that. I'm not a very analytical person. I have various impulses. I've often quoted Walt Whitman's phrase "I contain multitudes." I understand that.

I've lost many, many friends through natural causes, through alcohol, through drugs, through AIDS. And every time I lose a friend or a loved one, it reminds me how great life is.

When I was home, traditionally since I was young, I'd write in cafés. That was the romantic notion in 1963. Café atmospheres back then were different. The café life really stemmed from the Parisians' idea of it, with poets struggling over their poems and drinking coffee. No music, no sounds, maybe a little jazz, or soul, but mostly nothing. Now you go into a café and the music is really loud, people are having business meetings, they are on their cellphones. It changes from generation to generation.