More of my songs are intended to be funny than almost anyone else. Sometimes maybe it cheers me up a bit. I've got a distance from it. Sometimes what I'm writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It's more important to me that I'm writing well than anything else.

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.

To get nominated by the Republican Party you've got to be pretty reactionary, really.

Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

I am not overlooking any mail. I'm looking at all of it. I even wrote back to the Viagra people.

I always thought my best album was 'Trouble in Paradise.' I was the happiest with that one.