If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer...When I was younger, I felt it was my duty to wake people up. I thought poetry was asleep. I thought rock 'n' roll was asleep...An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.

I watch a lot of crime shows. The head investigator always said to the crime solver, "What do you say?" And inevitably the other has to say something like, "Well I'm thinking he was shot in the neck with a certain gun and he seemed to be running." The solver has to picture what he's seeing first, and then express his own observations. The writer does the same.

Those were the things on my mind [stay healthy, take care of my kids and reestablish a relationship with the people], not career, money, drugs, sex, alcohol or fun. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, but they aren't in the film [Dream of Life], because that wasn't my life at the time.

New generations are intoxicated with the idea that they can make their presence known on the Internet. When I was young, there wasn't anything comparable. Very few got their picture in a magazine, fewer made records. We have to stand back and let them get their footing. Hopefully they'll come to the realization that the most important thing is their work and how they conduct themselves.

I don't wanna be equal with anybody. I wanna be above equal. I don't think most people are equal to me. I'd like to communicate with everybody; I'd like to do something universal, I'd like to have the hit record of the world. But that's not the same as being equal.

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

I wanted to remember the original energy; strip away all the glamour and limousines and tons of drugs. I wanted to get back to the revolutionary ideas, merging poetry and rhythm and rock and roll.