I don’t think I was really addicted. I used it as a party tool.

Back then it was nothing like today. So you’d go to the bowling alley. We bowled and you could be in the back and you could make out, you know? And you know how hot...

Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited.

I love decorating my home. I’m a gardener too, so that’s usually something I have to play catch up with.

By then I was in Brooklyn and drank my way through that summer. I stopped when I got sick of that and got a job at the Strand bookstore, which was a little better than...

I’m 23 years old. I might just be my mother’s child, but in all reality, I’m everybody’s child. Nobody raised me; I was raised in this society.

I like to make great albums.

The final story, the final chapter of western man, I believe, lies in Los Angeles.

It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheels.

I never used to drink water. I am drinking six liters of water every day now. That’s the key.

I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.

My honeymoon night was spent on the floor in the bathroom with my mother.

As far as being on a major label, some labels get it and get what they have to do, and some labels don’t. I don’t think the label I’m on necessarily gets it, but I...

War is not civilized.

When people ask me what I do, strangers on a plane, perhaps, I tell them that I think. Thinking is excellent exercise, as much as swimming or jogging.

Love hurts, love scars, love wounds, and mars.

Another time I cracked two of the vertebrae in my back and broke a rib.

In this business, it is very hard to have anything for yourself, because you become a public figure. That comes with the territory.

Quite frankly, I’ve always listened to the black side of the radio dial. Where I grew up, there was a lot of it and there was a lot of live music around.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

You never know when you put out an album that’s unique whether it’ll get beat up for it or not.

To set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didn’t sign to Atlantic just for the money.

The same things go on everywhere, whether you’re from the city, the country or wherever.

But primarily, the drummer’s supposed to sit back there and swing the band.

I never solicited a major label and I certainly wouldn’t now.

Everybody came in to see Suicide to be entertained, and all we did was give them back the street, in all its glory, and that’s what they hated us for.

As a matter of fact they’d blacken us down. I guess there’s a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he...

I choose to express myself.

Look, jazz has always had, because of its origins, that’s the only reason. It’s the only reason it’s like that. Where it came from. It’s not accepted.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

We raised almost 2 million dollars at the last golf tournament that can be used for minority scholarships and Junior Golf programs. The payoff for the work we do is so much more valuable than...

Once you’re halfway home, you know that you can probably get the rest of the way there.

I had heard Ornette a couple of times, but I didn’t really know where he was coming from until we started the record and it was beautiful, Fred. It opened up my mind.

I’ve cried, and you’d think I’d be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.

I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I’m singing now is what makes the money.

I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.

I’ve always felt that there’s a point where a piece seems to be alive, that is, living. And that’s the point where I know the composition is finished.

I drive a lot. Just for pleasure. Sometimes I’ll get in the Cadillac and drive around the city or the country, kind of trying to get lost basically. Y’know, just see where roads lead.

Every few years I’ll party way too much to remind myself what an idiot I am.

As far as solo records, there’s ten years between it. As far as other releases, there’s, I don’t know, four or five years between it.

I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It’s just not me. I really am happy...

Even from a listening end now, I’m still completely a fan of music.

I love playing and I love singing, and the writing. There’s kind of a symbiotic relationship between the writing and the playing.

I know there’s some kind of history to mountain music-like it came from Ireland or England or Scotland and we kept up the tradition.

There’s always been a man telling me what to do.

I think Wes Montgomery is the greatest jazz guitarist that ever lived.

I know I didn’t like that dress ’cause it didn’t fit but I thought it was a great picture. We weren’t the first band to do a picture in drag; The Rolling Stones were. If...

I take my craft very seriously.

My parents dreaded the fact that I was changing my life to do this, but I just kept doing it.

I feel like it’s important to use this gift God gave me, my life and my career to do something to make the world a better place. It’s an easy thing for me to do.