“Yeah, I’m old as the hills and you would think I’d be out to pasture someplace because I’ve done everything, but nothing has changed.”

Fame is always a shock to the system; there’s no school to go to, there are no books to read, and when it hits you, it’s a surprise. You could be working for 10, 20 years and when it finally hits you, you get knocked down.

I come from nowhere Brooklyn, New York. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days Williamsburg is kind of a hip area, but when I grew up there, the taxi drivers wouldn’t even go over the bridge, it was so dangerous.

I stay glued to my piano and my work. I don’t look up. I write, I produce, I do the next project, I do my job. I don’t look up, and I try to be kind. I try to be kind to people. That’s what I do.

You say something stupid and the next morning you’re in the headlines.

My goal was always to be involved in music that would outlive me. And maybe that’s actually happening.

You can’t possibly prepare for what happens to you the day you hit No. 1 and people treat you differently.

I think the people who are out there for fame get themselves in a lot of trouble.

There’s just no quiet in Vegas.

I was always into the music. Music, in general, saved my life. But the fame part… I would look up, see what was going on around me, the reporters and photographers and all, and then I would just go back to making my music.

QVC has been very good to me.

Misfits aren’t misfits among other misfits.

I couldn’t bear the road anymore. I’m sure that a lot of people who have been on the road a long time will say the same thing. After a while, waiting for bedroom service and planes – I wanted to go home.

I am a musician. My passion for music has obliterated everything in its path for my entire life.

Everybody has to find out: who are you? What do you believe in?

No one person or material thing could ever come close to the feeling I get when the music is right.

Touring is a young man’s game, but after 30 years of it, I want to stay home.

Hills are terrific for running

As Beverly Hills becomes more Iranian-Jewish, it is becoming politically conservative.

But coming home that day, walking downhill with a panorama of valley and hills before me, I turned my gaze inward, and what I saw, stopped me in my tracks.

Nothing really happened – I was elected in ’86 – until 1992, and that’s when the Anita Hill debacle happened.