“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 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.

We used to drink an awful lot of alcohol.

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.

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.

I know that the hard work got me here. And the day I stop working hard, this can all go away.

I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me,

Guys like Larry Bird — he played so hard, he wants everybody else to play hard. That’s not unreasonable. Any coach would want that and demand that.

I want you to take a good, hard look at me, America, because this is exactly what you’ve got coming.

It’s hard enough for me to write what I want to write without me trying to write what you say they want me to write which I don’t want to write.

I think you have to work very hard and dedicate yourself and have the respect of your teammates before you’re about to go out and just try to take a game over by yourself.

The vast majority of the American people are hard-working taxpayers who take responsibility for their families, go to work every day, they pay their mortgage on time, they volunteer in the community.

Life is hard and astonishingly complicated…. No one great reform will make it easy.