“I’m not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.”

It’s very hard to stop doing things you’re used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.

I’m the type of guy who’d sell you a rat’s asshole for a wedding ring.

Come down off the cross, we could use the wood.

The average person spends two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.

Children make up the best songs, anyway. Better than grown-ups. Kids are always working on songs and throwing them away, like little origami things or paper airplanes. They don’t care if they lose it; they’ll just make another one.

I’ve been riding on the crest of a slump lately.

Never have your wallet with you onstage. It’s bad luck. You shouldn’t play the piano with money in your pocket. Play like you need the money.

The earth is not my home, I’m just passing by.

Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.

Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you’re dead.

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.

I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.

I like Thelonious Monk, he’s so gnarled, he’s like a piece of machinery that’s pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.

The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.

And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.