All human activity is fruitless when pitted against the girls and boys singing on pop television, for they have found the answer as the rest of us search for the question. I will sing, too. If not, I will have to die.

It's so tedious that everyone must be defined.

I don't want to go on much longer, really. I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also.

The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble - famous and meaningless.

The passing of time and all of its crimes is making me sad again. The passing of time and all of its sickening crimes is making me sad again. But don't forget the songs that made you cry and the songs that saved your life.. Yes, you're older now and you're a clever swine. But they were the only ones who ever stood by you

If you must write prose or poems, the words you use should be your own. Don't plagiarize or take 'on loan'. There's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows, who'll trip you up and laugh when you fall.

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.