“I wasn’t ever good enough to be on the baseball team and that sort of stuff.”

I had a very modest upbringing.

Because I’m such a studio guy, I really trust my process. I really believe in myself in the studio.

I wanted to be a professional baseball player.

When you go in and do a cool, small character, it feels less like work and more like fun.

I like to challenge myself and give myself a timeline. It pushes me to be more creative and actually do these things, not just dream about them.

Hearing the record and seeing the response is affirming that it was the right time and right choice.

I didn’t do the typical things that young kids do.

My tendency is to be the guy in the back, even though I often end up being the guy in the front.

Nobody believes it, but I slept on a futon till I was 13.

Even in my darkest times I knew I had a good future ahead of me.

But I’ve consistently worked for 10 years.

My mom just understands about stuff. We have a really good trust, and she knows I can take care of myself.

My parents were hippies.

Even the great bad guys in cinema history, they’re likable.

I think some people are on a mission to die, and I never was.

I have a habit of recording records very quickly – and not in a haphazardly way, not in a way where I’m not focused on details, because I’m a freak when it comes to that.

Cuba wants to get rid of a dictator, and baseball needs a dictator.

I have been a fan all my life, but now I have been out of football for over 10 years, and out of baseball for a little over six years and I don’t go to games.

A catcher must want to catch. He must make up his mind that it isn’t the terrible job it is painted, and that he isn’t going to say every day,

It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball

I never took the game home with me. I always left it in some bar.

Every baseball crowd, like every theatre audience, has its own distinctive attitude and atmosphere.

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen.

I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.