Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government acts like an old, imperial 18th- or 19th-century European power.

Im not, by nature, a collaborator. My biggest influences were people like painters and poets. These are solitary workers.

What keeps me going is a constant sense of disappointment with what I've already done.

I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in late '40s and '50s.

Love is blind. My politics has been, too. I think you can fall in love with ideas, and you can fall in love with people. It's a very subjective experience. And I'm loyal to that experience.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is.

On the whole, I tend not to listen to my peers.