Some songs seem to achieve the quality of a geometric object - a ball, box, or cone - and I don't mess with 'em.

I wanted to be a poet and/or an artist, but I was very lazy (frightened of failure, I guess) and drank too much.

I remember Bob Dylan saying in an interview that at a certain point he'd had to learn to do consciously what he'd previously done unconsciously or automatically. That resonates.

One of the beauties of working in radio is the way a whole setting can be richly evoked simply by the addition to the track of a little birdsong and a church bell in the distance.

Songs came first. I started out in 1965 trying to copy the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Stones, like most kids I knew. I'm still trying. Songs are hard to beat.

She felt like a creature born to reside on the bottom of the ocean floor, dark and flat and half-blind, slowly rising through the icy water to the glittering light above.

Majid gave me a brief dazzling golden stare and then half-lidded his eyes again. I know when my life is being threatened.

I really wanted to work hard on my lyrics.

Put all your eggs in one basket. Then you're less likely to drop that basket.

My motivations are thinking I can write better songs, that the concerts can be better.

Despotism can only exist in darkness.

I don't know if I would refer to myself as a local celebrity.

In my productive activity, every time a type grows beyond the stage of its genesis, and I have about reached the goal, the intensity gets lost very quickly, and I have to look for new ways.

You know what's the worst part about being an actress? It's the pressure to look gorgeous all the time and to behave perfectly. But I'm not perfect, nobody is.

Even idiots can grow up a little bit. It should be a bit more subdued. ... The first celebration should be subdued, and the fourth one should be crazy.