“I admit that I ain’t no angel, I admit that I ain’t no saint – I’m selfish and I’m cruel and I’m blind. If I exorcise my devils, well my angels may leave too. When they leave they’re so hard to find.”

If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.

Songs are really just very interesting things to be doing with the air.

I’m always looking for sounds that are pleasing at the time. The sound of a helicopter is really annoying until you’re drowning, and it’s there to rescue you. Then it sounds like music.

New York forces you to be in endless surreal situations.

I always liked the idea that America is a big facade. We are all insects crawling across on the shiny hood of a Cadillac. We’re all looking at the wrapping. But we won’t tear the wrapping to see what lies beneath.

The trick is to have a career and have a family. It’s like having two dogs that hate each other and you have to take them for a walk every night.

I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left.

People get frightened that success is going to take them out of life. They’re no longer going to be on the corner of Bedlam and Squalor; life will only be something you can get through the mail.

There’s no prayer like desire.

Oh, I’m not a percussionist, I just like to hit things.

The beginning of it starts at the end.

Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, it’s just god when he’s drunk.

You got to tell me the brave captain Why are the wicked so strong? How do the angels get to sleep When the devil leaves the porch light on?

I’ve lost my equilibrium, my car keys, and my pride.

I’ve seen it all through the yellow windows of the evening train.

You’re my North Star when I’m lost and feeling blue.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck.

It is hard to believe long together that anything is “worth while,” unless there is some eye to kindle in common with our own, some brief word uttered now and then to imply that what is infinitely precious to us is precious alike to another mind.

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

My mother taught me to always be strong and always work hard. She’s been working hard her whole life for me and my brother. I’m a lot like her in that I work hard for what I want. She taught me that.

Confidence is 10 percent hard work and 90 percent delusion.

You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

I cared about us. But the cold hard truth was, nothing i said or did could realign the stars.

Many who are self-taught far excel the doctors, masters, and bachelors of the most renowned universities.