The goal of all my work is essentially the same: demonstrating that magic is real or that reality is magic, by paying attention, and finding compensation or consolation for what is essentially a tragic existence.

I'm not a visionary, but I've spent half my life drawing things Imagined, Remembered, and Observed, comparing the differences between them, and my study confirms that "the difference between night and day / is not as great as people say."

I wanted to be a poet and/or an artist, but I was very lazy (frightened of failure, I guess) and drank too much.

Some songs seem to achieve the quality of a geometric object - a ball, box, or cone - and I don't mess with 'em.

I remember Bob Dylan saying in an interview that at a certain point he'd had to learn to do consciously what he'd previously done unconsciously or automatically. That resonates.

I've written a lot of wordy, erudite, pretentious songs, but believe it or not, I'm usually doing my damnedest to resist the temptation to be overly "clever," and trying to keep things as accessible - and singable - as possible.

Songs came first. I started out in 1965 trying to copy the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Stones, like most kids I knew. I'm still trying. Songs are hard to beat.