I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him.

We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at.

All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.

This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.

This is about black people selling out other black people.

People have the right to say what they want to.

If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles.

I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.

We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

I've been around so many people for so long that I take great delight in my own company.

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?

People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.

Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing.

I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

Regret should be handled swiftly, and you shouldn't hold onto it. People spend their entire lives regretting what they didn't do and what they should've done. Hey, man, you did what you did.