“I compare songwriting to childbirth. How many kids can you have before your uterus explodes?”

There’s a deep-seated paranoia that Americans have about not being Americans or something.

And you know that when the truth is told that you can get what you want or you can just get old.

Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.

I don’t know why people thought I was retiring.

Historically, musicians know what it is like to be outside the norm – walking the high wire without a safety net. Our experience is not so different from those who march to the beat of different drummers.

I don’t belong in limos or private jets or on stage with people cheering me but that’s what’s kept me grounded because I know it’s not right.

Call me a joker, call me a fool, right at this moment I’m totally cool.

You’ve got to be hard, like the rock in that old rock & roll.

We’re only human, we’re supposed to make mistakes.

I’ve tried to avoid that all my life. When I wrote about soldiers in Vietnam, I wasn’t trying to make a political statement. I was trying to write about how screwed things were for soldiers, and how they still are.

Most people are satisfied with the junk food being sold as music.

I took a fresh pack of Luckies, a mint called Sen-Sen, my old man’s Trojans.

Sergeant O’Leary is walking the beat, at night he becomes a bar tender.

I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.

It took me years to write it, they were the best years of my life It was a beautiful song but it ran too long If you’re gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit So they cut it down to 3:05.

You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes, but they’re the only things that you can truly call your own.