Things always change, and New York teaches you that.

we still have the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building and the Woolworth Building, but it just seems like part of the nature of New York, that it's always shifting.

Another thing that's good about writing to describe a situation or a state of consciousness is that you can finally get it right. That was my intention, and that's always interesting.

The purpose of rock n' roll is to convince girls to pay money to get close to you.

In fact I thought life was pretty much a losing proposition, and I didn't mind saying so.

I'm usually alone or asleep, at home.

I do everything halfway, a thing of which adults disapprove, but things done halfway are deceptive, and in a class of their own – for instance, the sun is really twice its size.

A memoir takes some particular threads, some incidents, some experience from a person's life and gives an account of it.

I shake my head and the tiny acrobats fall like spangles, like the cool rain on another planet, down to the inside of my feet.

I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam War and the collapse of the '60s and the proliferation of media' it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out.

A memoir is a book about some particular thread or theme or moment in a person's life, whereas an autobiography is the entire life.

I was a team sports guy, but I don't do that anymore. When I work out, it's alone.

Looking for equality everywhere is a huge mistake because equals are terrible and boring. But a sense of fairness and justice is a totally different thing and a much more complex thing.

I try and go to as many places as possible. It's really cool that I even get to see different places.

[A conductor's] happiness does not come from only his own story and his joy of the music. The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

In a way an umpire is like a woman. He makes quick decisions, never reverses them, and doesn't think you're safe when you're out.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

When I had all the answers, the questions changed.

It's important to give kids an opportunity to see what the world is about, and music is a fantastic friend.

It makes no sense to spend $6 billion a month to go after 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

I'm so glad that Hollywood and America are embracing women when they get in their 40s instead of putting us out to pasture.