I told somebody in Europe I was 43. I never tell my true age. It's ridiculous that people ask. The press doesn't deserve anything but lies.

I'm kind of proud of that little record! I mean I've heard about a million other records that have come out since then by all these groups around here and there and I really like 'Little Johnny Jewel'.

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

It's like first grade where you make all your mistakes and people see it and yet some people see that there's something there that's really valuable. That's the way it went for more than 2 years almost 3 years of playing.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

Style to me is incidental. The British are very adept at creating it for its own sake, but the best style is incidental. John Coltrane had a style but it was totally incidental to what he was.

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.