So much of our culture is bought and manufactured - not to say great art can't come out of that. Some art is really amazing that is manufactured and sold, like action movies and stuff.

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.

[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.

We like something because someone else liked it.

There was a lot of tension between my dad and his mother and brothers. Sometimes when I was over there, I remember thinking, "I don't want to get shot."

I'm sure we're going to find out one day that the brain is as worthless as the appendix.

I think maybe it's my personality. People don't like my face.