“If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.”

There’s a plaque on our wall that says we’ve sold over 65 million albums, and I don’t feel I’ve accomplished anything. I feel like I’m just getting started.

Music is for people. The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I’m just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I’m cool.

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I’m not your average bear. I – what’s the word? I’m not – normal.

Bass is for people who can’t play guitar.

I’ll be making music ’til the day I die. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.

Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.

I’ll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I’m recording. If I break one I’ll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.

Eventually you’ll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you’ve copped and begin to put your own mark on them.

Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Tuborg. My brother would go out to party and get laid, come home at 3am., and I would still be playing with myself.

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.

I’m just a normal schmo like anyone else.

I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’

Everything comes to me while I’m sitting on the pot.

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

Nirvana was huge, but it didn’t appeal to everyone.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

What are the children of men, but as leaves that drop at the wind’s breath?

All men know their children mean more than life.

Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow.

Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets.

Those who care for the little ones are on God’s side and defeat the culture of waste.

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.

Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.