From one generation to the next, The Beatles will remain the most important rock band of all time.

When you're thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.

Because you have things like 'American Idol' and you've got radio stations that play music made entirely by computers, it's easy to forget there are bands with actual people playing actual instruments that rock.

When you're young, you're not afraid of what comes next. You're excited by it.

Give me something to assemble, I won't look at the directions, I'll try to figure it out by myself. It's why I love Ikea furniture.

When I joined Nirvana, I was the fifth or sixth drummer - I don't know if they'd ever had a drummer they were totally happy with. And they were strangers. There was never much of a deeper connection outside of the music.

I never needed much, and I never thought I'd get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

My songwriting is like extending a hand to the listener.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.

When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors - old friends, family.

I had a Super Grover doll growing up. Super Grover was very clumsy, he wasn't very good-looking. But in his own way he'd always save the day.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down.

I'm happy that I have my family, and I'm happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing's changed, really.

When there's so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you've already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days?

There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more.

It was that famous joke: What's the last thing the drummer said before he got kicked out of the band? 'Hey, I wrote a song.'

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's gathering people together to do something fun.

I hear a lot of people singing in funny voices and singing like they're stupid. Singing in a deliberately fey and dumb and childish way. And I find it to be a disturbing trend.

Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.

My house is actually two houses that were deconstructed. They were Connecticut Valley houses built in 1771 and 1781. I took them down piece by piece and reconstructed them about 50 miles to the west on the New York/Connecticut border.

Nobody's going to sell 10 million records by not working hard.

To me, there's two kinds of music these days. There's ephemeral music, and there's music that has lasting power and depth.

The Philadelphia/New York world of the music business is a tough place to be.