Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!

I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.

What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.

I realized that, instead of moving people closer to a salvation decision, an answer can push them further away. Rather than engaging their minds or urging them to consider an alternative perspective, an answer can give them ammunition for future attacks against the gospel.

I like the idea of taking a true classic written by a true genius and essentially destroying it!

And the Lord said: I burn down your cities - how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That's why I love mankind.

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.