I'm an amateur at music and an amateur at most things. I like the idea of offering some music and some records and a website to people who feel perplexed.

I think I gravitate towards rock 'n' roll as a playground where I can say anything.

I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.

I had so many secrets and so much social repression throughout my life. I guess I'm just a shy person and feel like my true self is unacceptable to most people.

I'm certainly not interested in religion for religion's sake or for some kind of structure or stabilizing force. Religion is supposed to be for God's sake and God is an unpredictable, wild thing.

Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan I heard when I was 13. It was one of those things where it was like, "Hey, the world is much bigger than you imagined as a little kid."

I thought [ as a kid], "Maybe I don't want to start a punk band necessarily. I just want to learn to be a great songwriter," and got really into trying to figure out how that could be possible.

What really is wild about rock 'n' roll? Nothing. It's so banal and so part of corporate culture. It threatens to lose all its life.

Some people just carry heavy hearts and more often than not it has nothing to do with you.

To so many people, the Lord is in danger of being no more than a patron saint of our systematic theology instead of the Christ Who is our life.

The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence.

His shortcoming is his long staying.

If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well.

May was so great to work with, he even took me over to Japan for some dates. It blew me away when he let me play his guitar on stage with him.

The heaven I witnessed was so pure, love-filled, and magnificent that I did not want to return to earth.

Money is not the root of all kinds of evil. The love of money is. It’s also the root of a lot of bad art.

We followed the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, who is the boss. And we don't waste a lot of time arguin' about a dead black man, Malcolm X, when the whites are our common enemies.

My mind still runs too fast. If we get the wrong fabric or something is stitched the wrong way, I get so angry and so flummoxed that I start spelling my words, just to slow myself down.