[Jazz musicians] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.

I like to see people reaching back for the roots and for the reason why. Not intellectually, but just for the gut feeling of what it's all about.

I like [George] Benson because I just like it. I like that kind of style. I don't like the broken up kind of style. I don't like where you play for 16 bars and then break it up into what somebody's version of what birds twittering sounds like, or what the sound of the city is, or what New York sounds like.

When it's not always raining there'll be days like this. When there's no one complaining there'll be days like this. When everything falls into place like the flick of a switch. Well my mama told me there'll be days like this.

There is no black-and-white situation. It's all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

I didn't know what some of the stuff on Astral Weeks was about until years later.