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 don't think the average American understands what patriotism truthfully is. That's why when I attack our country or attack the government, it's sometimes looked at as unpatriotic. It's not.

When I was working on the lyrics, I thought of all the lullabies we learn as children: "Away in the Manger," William Blake's lullabies. I realized that the key to lullabies is simplicity.

With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn't know who to work with.

There were days, rainy gray days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every window the lens of a Leica, the view grainy and immobile. We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed. We lay in each other's arms, still awkward but happy, exchanging breathless kisses into sleep.

I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.

Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe, love is a banquet on which we feed.