I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I'm a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.

The things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.

There's only one reason why you write new songs: You get sick of the old songs. It's not that I didn't do anything during the time when I wrote no songs. I was creative, but in another way. I had ideas for songs and collected the ideas.

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.

Oh, I'm not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.

The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.

When I started looking for pointed shoes, I used to go to Fairfax on Orchard Street in New York City, one of those little pushcart guys. I'd say, 'You got any pointy shoes?' They would go way, way in the back and come back with a dusty box, blow the dust off the top, and say, 'What do you want with these things? Give me twenty bucks. Go on, get outta here!' And that was the beginning.