I don't want an entire world full of people just drinking Coca-Cola and eating McDonald's hamburgers and listening to American pop records. That would be a lesser world. I hope the cultural diversity is rich and is able to survive the Westernization of their economies.

The cultural mix that's happened in the United States is wonderful! Funny enough, one of the most wonderful things about it is that there is no American race.

I don't want to be a professional cripple. And I don't see the suicide stuff as tragic.

I know people who grow old and bitter. I want to keep making a fresh start. I don't want them to defeat me. That would be suicidal.

I stopped drinking a few years ago, and drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble. You can get away with that your 20s, but not in your 60s, and I'll be 70 next year. Life is a small space now, much more intimate. I'm not out there in the world anymore, but I'm watching.

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and dropping too many bombs on too many people.

The United States is a country where everybody can start again.