It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.

If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.

We'll have a kid or maybe we'll rent one. He's got to be straight, we don't want a bent one.

I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.

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.

Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.

Some fools in the desert with nothing to do...invented me, and they invented you. And other fools keep it all going and growing. Everybody, we're a figment of their imagination.