“Musically, he was like an old man in a boy’s skin.”

Up until I became a father, it was all about self-obsession. But then I learned exactly what it’s all about: the delight of being a servant.

You can’t mastermind everything. You’ll go crazy. Just show up and play.

It sounds strange for me to be saying this, but I’ve come around to the idea that sex really is for procreation.

Only ask and you will get what you are needing, the rest is up to you.

Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.

The point of being at home is to be with my family as much as possible.

Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it’s the last time.

Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest.

The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same – 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.

I got a problem, can you relate? I got a woman calling love hate.

Lately I’ve been running on faith.

For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.

I often enjoy singing in an acoustic setting more than an amplified one.

This moment in time, on this tour, you know, I’m discovering a lot of new things. And to be 45 and doing that, it’s a mixture of pleasure and pain, I can assure you.

All along this path I tread, my heart betrays my weary head, with nothing but my love to save, from the cradle to the grave.

Yeah, it is, because it’s a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That’s what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

A man is what a woman makes him and a woman makes herself.

A paranoid man makes paranoid plans.

A man who knows how little he knows is well, a man who knows how much he knows is sick.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.

What then is the intellectual advantage of civilization over primitive savagery? It is not necessarily that each civilized man has more knowledge but that he requires far less.

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.