I want to keep my life as unfettered as possible. So maybe I'll just pretend to get rare books from my catalogue, and not really get them.

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.

People have the power to redeem the work of fools.

Sometimes you write passages that don't need to be rewritten. Performance is that for me. Improvisation, things that happen in the moment, are sometimes wonderful, or wonderful as a moment to be shared between performer and people, but that's it. There might be a strong bond between you and the people, a transformative night, but as a live record it might not translate.

Nothing is a hobby - each discipline is its own world with its own high standards. Of course, every artist has 'minor works' that they do, but I don't think I have any 'minor disciplines.'

When I was a teenager, I dreamed of being an opera singer like Maria Callas or a jazz singer like June Christy or Chris Connor, or approaching songs with the kind of mystical lethargy of Billie Holiday, or championing the downtrodden like Lotte Lenya. But I never dreamed of singing in a rock-and-roll band.

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.