“I like vocal word stuff. But I don’t always write with an instrument, I usually write a capella. It’s more like drawing in the air with your fingers. It’s closest to the choreography of a bee. You’re freer.”

But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.

I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.

The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.

I don’t like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, ‘Oh God, another one bites the dust.’

Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.

It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.

You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.

They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing.

I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.

I never told the truth so i can never tell a lie.

Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don’t get out much. It’s true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.

The Universe is making music all the time.

Their memory’s like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream.

But then I’m one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.

I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong. I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.

When your down on your luck and you’ve lost all your dreams theres nothing like a campfire and a can of beans.

I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.

I like to trace the ghosts of your fingers on the back of my hand. They read- I don’t know how to hold without you.

Write, write, write-till your fingers break.

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’ve learned, That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you’re hooked for life.

She might have liked to try to strangle him with those slender fingers of hers, but she wanted to make a job of it and this great patience with which she waited for her claws to grow was in itself a form of enjoyment.

I was so used to doing old blues licks with the first three fingers. When I started using my pinky and finding more spread things, that’s when I started getting my own style.

How many movies do you see when you can say this director really knew what film he wanted to make? I can count them on the fingers of one hand.