I'm trying to get music ideas that come and keep them alive. It's like carrying water in your hands. I want to keep it all, and sometimes by the time you get to the studio you have nothing.

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.

I just don't like the word 'fun'--it's like Volkswagen, or bell-bottoms, or patchouli-oil or bean-sprouts...it rubs me up the wrong way.

God's away, God's away, God's away on business. Business!

I saw a crow building a nest, I was watching him very carefully, I was kind of stalking him and he was aware of it. And you know what they do when they become aware of someone stalking them when they build a nest, which is a very vulnerable place to be? They build a decoy nest. It's just for you.

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.

I've seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.