In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.

I would encourage people to realize that you don't have to panic if you're not part of a mainstream, or if you find yourself outside the flow. If it doesn't suit you, don't go along with it. Just sit it out and get your stuff done. Don't just sit moaning or getting drunk—I spent some years doing that. But if you can just come up with something of your own, however minor it is, that's going to be easier to live with when you're at the end of your life.

I looked at what adults were doing and how they wanted to earn money, and I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to go away.

It's funny that Chairman Mao's great hero was Napoleon, because Napoleon started out as a revolutionary for the underdogs and then made himself an emperor. In fact, a lot of revolutionary leaders do that, and you think, "Well, that's spoiling your argument. What are you doing?" But on the other hand, the people themselves are enjoying trying out all these different ways to be. I hope that, like the Japanese, the Chinese hang on to their own traditions as well as try out Western ones. I hate it when people just lose so much confidence in who they are that they abandon their own culture.

I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.

I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.

People are quite shocked when you remind them that Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra never wrote a song that they recorded in their lives, as far as I know.