Rock is for everybody; it should be so implicitly anti-elitist that the question of whether somebody's qualified to perform it should never even arise.

When kids can't afford to see it anymore maybe we'll have a whole resurgence of garage bands all over America and this New Wave thing will start to mean something on a grass roots level.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

Style is originality; fashion is fascism. The two are eternally and unalterably opposed.

Music, you know, true music not just rock 'n' roll, chooses you.

A hero is a goddam stupid thing to have in the first place and a general block to anything you might wanta accomplish on your own.

The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.

Realizing that life is precious the natural tendency is to trample on it, like laughing at a funeral.

Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.

The whole point of American culture is to pick up any old piece of trash and make it shine with more facets than the Hope Diamond.

John Lennon at his best despised cheap sentiment and had to learn the hard way that once you've made your mark on history those who can't will be so grateful they'll turn it into a cage for you.

In a world resistant to change, we have to take matters into our own hands. Modern society and culture fails to support our healing by literally encouraging us to sustain our addictions.

Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.

Life is short, the art long.

The 'renewed' mind is the canvas on which the Spirit of God can paint.

Art is a subset of creativity.

In Germany I ingested the entire contents of the hotel mini-bar before a show and stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils because I thought they would fit.

If you have an ancestor who is a Benedictine monk, we would rather not know it.

The first book we fall in love with shapes us every bit as much as the first person we fall in love with.

People strangely revere dance. They see it as another world, and dancers are somehow mysterious - just because they don't speak.

The largest enemy of change isn't 'no', it's 'not yet' - that is the easiest way to forestall change.