“I don’t think of myself as a legend. I just love what I do. I love playing with my band, I love going to beautiful places and give people good music. I love what I do, I`m very lucky man.”

A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it’s all you’ve got, unless you’re brilliant and can write totally in the now.

The good Lord made this world and everything that’s in it. The way I see it, baby, you got to love it to the limit.

I still believe that love is all you need. I don’t know a better message than that.

It’s a lifelong gift, something you can call on at any time.

A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.

I like most kinds of music. So I haven’t got a bag, as they say. Except the big black one in the hall outside.

When I see bacon, I see a pig, I see a little friend, and that’s why I can’t eat it. Simple as that.

The best thing I ever saw was a man who loved his wife.

Trumpets are a bit more adventurous; they’re drunk! Trumpeters are generally drunk. It wets their whistle.

I’m only 49 years old. I’m still in the middle of this whole thing. I don’t feel like it’s finished at all. I’m still planning to write better songs.

I think [Transcendental Meditation] is what people need. They don’t need high minded talk, they need results.

Be cool and you’ll be alright. That’s rock & roll religion.

There will be an answer. Let it be.

Every time I felt low, I just put on an Elvis record and I’d feel great, beautiful.

Painting is a magical process that I like, where you conjure something out of nothing; you get a little idea that leads you through. You can go into a trance while you’re doing it, so it’s a nice contrast to real life.

And what’s the point of changing when I’m happy as I am?

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

The explosions, like the urban legends, are a great way of bringing people in to watch, because it’s really fun, and you know we’re always going to give you a satisfying ending.

Once when I went over my work with my Washington University professor, the late great Stanley Elkin, he pointed to a passage of mine and said: Stop vamping. It has remained a caution.

Whether it’s in a phrase like “going over like a lead balloon” or “a needle in a haystack,” or tackling movie myths or even a genre, like MacGyver or James Bond

We’re allowed to explore the world at large on these things; the urban-legend aspect of it is just kind of an excuse.

I always loved Alan Menken songs and wanted my first album to be a tribute to him and his work. I always loved his music.

In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.

Neil Young, who isn’t really evident when you listen to my music, is probably my favorite of the legends, besides Dylan.