You won’t really get a lot of the mainstream, lovey-dovey side because that wasn’t a part of my life in the beginning.

The tours are campaigns.

There are times I can’t even figure myself out.

As a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It’s not a style that’s difficult to pick up. It’s purely emotive and dead easy to get a start...

A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.

A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.

It’s nice to know you have support. Last night I got a marriage proposal. I just laughed.

I’ve always been so apathetic. I figured, OK, maybe the world is going to fall down around me. Now I want to make a better world… that’s motherhood.

When people screamed novelty the first time around talking about an ugly video and stuff I was really insulted because, hold on a minute, everyone you see in the video are real life.

I can think of a lot better things to do with my hands than to cut them up on the rim of a drum.

We went into that knowing that we were never going to sell a major record ’cause we didn’t sound like these bands, so I just thought this was an opportunity for us to make the...

We started out in England with a couple of shows, and then in Berlin and then France. It was really amazing. The audiences have been wonderful.

I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some...

I love the subtlety and tonal range of the acoustic guitar.

I enjoy seeing young people being interested in what they can do.

We’re confined to a framework of music, and I feel that the words can be poetic, but I wouldn’t say poetry in the strictest sense.

But I had two very special people who helped to take my style to the next level. Thank God for my first MC Cowboy and my first student Grand Wizard Theodore, and to go out...

Even when you are not playing you are holding me back.

I met up with Art Blakey in 1963, I think. It was right after Lee Morgan left and I played with him for about two and a half years.

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul.

Every time I think that I’m getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.

Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why-the lyrics had no meaning.

Most electronic equipment uses the principle of amplification. You need filters, modulators and mixing equipment which have gain stages. By piling these components up, I was able to work without any sound generators and I...

I don’t think it’s good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.

It’s hard for us not to be involved with things. When you have so much information and you see so much need, there’s too much going on for us not to get involved.

In fact, musicianship is at an all time low, so anybody who’s actually good at their instrument is probably unpopular at this particular moment.

I’ll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I’ll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I’m really just going a couple bars at...

It’s not like that often, I mean, I suppose out of a ratio of 10 fans maybe like 1 or 2 of ’em might be Asian, and maybe every second or third time they might...

It’s just something I’ve always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart.

I refuse to be pushed around anymore.

We used to go around tipping outhouses over, or turning over corn shocks on Halloween. Anything to be mean.

I wish I could sing. I love singers, but I am way too shy. Scares the hell out of me.

I’ve been writing Indian music for a while. Indian music is about Mother Earth, and mine is no exception.

If you put the right things out there the right things will happen.

And I got to know Red Foley well. And I got to know Lefty really well, he was a great guy.

I’m trying to forget how much that cost, but I just had to have them.

Confounding people’s expectations was a way to maintain integrity.

Working with the band, you’re in a room with three other people and you’re more verbal. It requires the other side of the brain.

And it’s not a finger-pointing issue to me; I take as much responsibility as I can. It was more just me not really knowing what I wanted to do and how to get it done.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to be a certain way. Be unique. Be what you feel.

I used to think I actually was Batman.

I want to work on some more complicated baking… and it would be interactive!

This is a serious, serious condition that is also called postpartum psychosis. And that’s where, literally, you get so bad that you end up either hurting the baby or killing yourself.

I’m just not interested in selling out to get on the charts and make people happy.

Show business is made up of disappointments, and it’s through life’s disappointments that you grow.

The last true punk band to get a major label contract was The Dickies.

I’m so happy because today I found my friends – they’re in my head.

I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.

No, because I don’t want to hear what’s hot and feel I have to copy it. I’ll just make up my own thing.

You’re really creative when you’re in an environment that you don’t know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was...