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.

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'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 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.

Evil would never bring Good, however much they wanted to believe that it would. By the time they discovered the truth, it would be too late.

Books allow you to open doors, and chapters allow you to explore

As a driver, you want to race every lap possible, especially when you've got a good car.

Error can point the way to truth, while empty-headedness can only lead to more empty-headedness or to a career in politics.

Lessons are not given, they are taken.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

You're The Grinch, Cole! That's why you don't like it.

Don't be too busy for each other because that is something today that I find to be incredibly unfortunate.

The roots of war are in the way we live our daily lives -- the way we develop our industries, build up our society, and consume goods.

The seed of every sin known to man is in my heart.