I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

I have lived in countries that were coming out of conflict: Ireland, South Africa, the Czech republic. People there are overflowing with energy.

Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

It's all about energy

Most of the things youfind yourself wantingwill have little or no bearingon the happiness in your life.

I love all life as my own. Therefore, I say, you're my very own. But am I, an infidel who does not believe in your ism, also your own?

Because of the internet and communications, the clash of cultures is much more direct. People feel, I think, less certain about their identity, less certain about economic security.

Singer Boy Dylan was stopped at his own sow by security guards who failed to recognize the singer. Asked to comment, Dylan replied, 'I can hardly blame them. Look at me.'

To shoot a decent fight, you need to cover all the different angles, and it ends up eating a lot of days.

You must always have great, secret, big fat hopes for yourself in love and in life. The bigger, the better.

I'm always looking for ways that I can work from home with my home studio and stay busy. This is a great way to do it. Having a home studio has made projects like this a lot easier.

I'm sorry to keep focusing on the New Yorker, but everybody who was growing up when Calvin [Trillin] and I were growing up wanted to be published in the New Yorker.

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.