Yeah, I'd say there's probably about a couple of hundred people I admire - but that has nothing to do with what a person does themselves. That's why I never mention these things. You can read a detective novel you really like, but it had no bearing on what you do yourself, you just think, "God, how this guy wove this together!" Or you get into the energy of it. Or you see a poem which makes a great statement about sentiment, but it's not sentimental.

I'd never assume an audience was anything but totally receptive and perfect. Seriously, it seems to me that's the only circumstance you can work under. Otherwise, speaking for myself, you may as well be in the advertising business.

You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

I have a real soft spot for flying saucer songs and Frenkenstein songs. When I was a kid the first record I ever really liked was called "The Mummy", and the flip-side was called "The Beat Generation" which Richard Hell later re-wrote as "The Blank Generation". I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever heard. I didn't like Elvis much then, but I was very young. When I was a kid I used to play that monster all the time!

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.