It's cold out there, colder than a ticket taker's smile at the Ivar Theatre on a Saturday night.

There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby.

As a kid, I did want to be an old-timer, since they were the ones with the big stories and the cool clothes. I wanted to go there. Now, I guess I want to bring that with me and go back in time.

All medical procedures require two hands, so in a sense it's like when you play an instrument. That's what they call things that they use in their work: They call them instruments. A lot of people start out majoring in medicine and drop it and change their major to music.

I like Thelonious Monk, he's so gnarled, he's like a piece of machinery that's pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.

All records are riddles, and whatever you may want people to think it's about, it may just be throwing them off. And you don't want it to get in the way of what someone else's understanding is. It's not really about anything. At the same time, it will find some meaning.

I knelt at the altar of Ray Charles for years. I worked at a restaurant, and that's all there was on the jukebox.