You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

The song Venus de Milo, the whole subject of it is Love is a drug.

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos.

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.

Everybody's out trying to be commercial. I'm not trying to be anything, really.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

I don't see us as a big media gimmick band. We don't have a cultivated appearance or anything like Kiss.

I can’t let it happen. I can’t risk it. I have to protect you, and I will. With every breath in me, I will.

Men are not great by the virtue of their wealth, but by the wealth of their virtue.

As human beings we're so cynical, so uncompassionate.

Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a prince as many funerals a physician.

Black is the hardest color in the world to get right-except for gray.

Seeker of truth follow no path all paths lead where truth is here.

There is only one thing that remains to us, that cannot be taken away: to act with courage and dignity and to stick to the ideals that have given meaning to life.

Poets are simply those who have made a profession and a lifestyle of being in touch with their bliss.

What can I hope when all is right?