Toyland, toyland . . . once you pass its portals you may never return again.

Eyeing the traffic circulating the lobby hung with bad art. Big invasive stuff unloaded on Stanley Bard in exchange for rent. The hotel is an energetic, desperate haven for scores of gifted hustling children from every rung of the ladder. Guitar bums and stoned-out beauties in Victorian dresses. Junkie poets, playwrights, broke-down filmmakers, and French actors. Everybody passing through here is somebody, if not in the outside world.

I was never a singer, I can't play any instruments, I had no training. Plus, I was brought up in a time when all the great rock stars were male. I didn't have any template for what I was doing. I did what I did out of frustration and concern.

If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!

Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.

It's not that I have compromised or anything, but it's always been important to me to take good care of myself and be a good example. I'm not much a role model in terms of hair care, though.

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.