“We used to drink an awful lot of alcohol.”

I didn’t write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn’t.

One of the great things about having good players in your band is that you just ask them questions. You can pick up some good information that way.

If I was hearing something I couldn’t do, I would figure out how to do it.

I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.

Entertainment is about telling everybody that everything is alright but music is on the side of the upsetters and that’s where I’m at.

Holding on to some of your uniqueness is the trick instead of surrendering it at the Academy of Contemporary We’re Gonna Make You a Star.

At the end of the whole day of working with people you want some privacy.

You learn so much about music from all the people you surround yourself with – good, bad and indifferent. It’s extremely hard to be specific.

So I have the classic amateur’s technique; I know some very tricky bits and I have large gaping holes.

We were from totally different social backgrounds. This is what is very hard for an American to understand, but we could have been five guys from Mars.

I warm naturally to the drummer whose ideas and approach are strong, even if he doesn’t quite have the ability to carry them out.

And I like messing around in the engine room of music. Seeing what happens in the rhythm section area.

We can be so focused on the nuts and bolts that we overlook the importance of individuality – the broader picture, if you will.

I practice at home, in between phone calls, and have much to do.

Plus I am being hounded by all the fabulous new drummers, Bill Stewart at the head of the pack.

Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.

The secret of spiritual success is a hunger that persists…It is an awful condition to be satisfied with one’s spiritual attainments…

It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless, and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in, whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.

I went to go see the Rolling Stones in the park, and they were awful: completely out of tune. Jagger wore a frock.

I let the other reviewers eat the bad meals, so that I didn’t have to, and my wife and I went out only for the good stuff. And I wrote mostly positive reviews. Not only. But mostly. And, ooooh, it felt an awful lot better.

When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously.

The awful realization of our mortality

You wait and wait for the next step, and when you get to the next step, it’s awful.

In the end we are all sacked and it’s always awful. It is as inevitable as death following life. If you are elevated there comes a day when you are demoted. Even Prime Ministers.