But then I'm one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.

Jimmy Stewart said he stopped making movies because he didn't like the way he looked on screen anymore. I'm more the guy who says I look like hell but I'm going to see where it gets me.

Most songs have meager beginnings. You wake up in the morning, you throw on your suspenders, and you subvocalize and just think. They seem to form like calcium. I can't think of a story right off the bat that was that interesting. I write things on the back of my hand, usually, and sing into a tape recorder.

George Burns was a Vaudeville performer I particularly loved.

I danced along a colored wind/ Dangled from a rope of sand

There's truths there that spiral out of what appears to be just a word game. That's what I find mystifying about the meanings of things: they kind of unscrew themselves from the practical words.

The folks who know the truth aren't talking.... The ones who don't have a clue, you can't shut them up!