The things that I have loved have always been those extremes where there has been some kind of apocalypse in the person's life, and they come out unscathed or scathed.

We like something because someone else liked it.

This [Thelonious Monk: The Life And Times Of An American Original] is another one of those books with the perfect blend of anecdote and analysis. The analysis is built into the anecdote. It has that right feel about it. It's not too scholarly, either.

Writing should be like skirts. Long enough to cover what it needs to cover and short enough to maintain interest.

[He Stopped Loving Her Today] is all about the experience of being alive and the thought process of consciousness, and then you have these polemical essay-type things going on for a couple decades now. Some of these music books are where you're going to see an anecdote of a person behaving without some kind of commentary.

Everybody is so sure about everything these days. Just look at your horrible Facebook feed on the most recent tragedy that people are commenting on.

I have no interest in being a trained ballerina. People should dance how they want to dance. I want to be the funky chicken.