I have unbelievable support among Republicans.

Chief executives that are successful make good chief executives.

I'm not so in with the prescriptive avant-garde agenda. I can do that sort of thing, but I feel that I'm still interested enough in song structure. When I look at a lyric on the page, the lyric is alive to me, looking like soldiers in a field. I can move it around, and it's very black-and-white.

I don't think that split government is a good idea. Conventional wisdom in Washington for years has been that divided government is good because of a check and a balance. What I believe happens all too often, regardless of which party is there's gridlock. And I think the better argument is give one party a chance, give them a chance with a House and a Senate and a president. Give them a few years to see what they can do. And if you don't like it, put another party in.

My problem with public sector union leaders, the bosses, has been they stood in the way of protecting the taxpayer.

About 70 percent of everything is really sketched out on my keyboard beforehand, because I do want accidents to happen in the studio.

Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.