“I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.”

I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.

People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They’re no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.

There’s no prayer like desire.

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

The beginning of it starts at the end.

Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.

You got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on?

I’ve lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.

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

You’re my North Star when I’m lost and feeling blue.

I don’t like the stigma that comes with being called a poet. So I call what I’m doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.

Break windows, smoke cigars, and stay up late. Tell ’em to do that, they’ll find a little pot of gold.

Sing me a rainbow. Steal me a dream.

I don’t go to church on Sunday, don’t get on my knees to pray, or memorize the books of the Bible, I got my own special way

On my gravestone, I want it to say, “I told you I was sick.”

The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.

We were in front of a live audience and I would be acting with the man who was playing my lover, and we used those words, and the audience would titter and laugh, and make me uncomfortable doing the scenes. …

I’ve always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can’t tell to an audience.

You’re giving the audience in real time something authentic from yourself. As an actor, my bullshit meter was going off like crazy at my first attempts to find my own rock star.

The best thing to do is to get out in front of an audience as much as you can, and learn from the experience.

Keep making music.. Keep improving your music.. If there’s no viral action on your music, you’re just not good enough. Don’t get mad at the audience, get mad at yourself. Either give up or get better.

I know doing movies is where I need to be. That’s where my audience wants to see me.

I see the footlights in front of me. I hear the whisperings of the audience. I feel an icy shudder. Win or die! Now or never! It’s the crisis of my life.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can’t always hear what people in the audience are saying.