I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.

Some day you do something where you use everything you know. You don't do it ostentatiously where you see the workings going on. But some day, if you're lucky, that will happen.

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.

College men from L.S.U., went in dumb, come out dumb, too.

The belief in the '70s was that music was changing the world. I never believed that it had that great an effect. The effect Madonna had on fashion and sort of mores of young girls was a bigger deal than anything Dylan may have said, even.

They don't respect us, so let's surprise them, we'll drop the big one, pulverize them.

Who would want to break into [the music business]? It's like a bank that's already been robbed.