For me, there's a fine line between telling a story that's fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it's bloodless, a little too fictional.

I have a 6-year-old, and his thing is to turn on Radio Disney in the car, and I get such an allergic reaction to listening to that music and the context into which it falls. I'm really working on him about that.

One of the things I've really gotten past in the last couple of years is the idea of being made uncomfortable by the way things appear, rather than how things are. Clearly in this business you have to contend with a lot of that.

I didn't want to play these people any more songs and have them say that they weren't good enough. So my response was to just not be able to write anymore. I know that's not the healthiest of responses.

I wanted to try to write songs on the piano to get a different flavor.

I certainly understand that we're all trying to make a living, but I'm not thinking about that when I'm making it. And if that's your sole motivation, it's going to reflect that narcissistic greed, and you're going to hear it in the music.

It really doesn't matter to me what people say about me anymore.

Everyone's just extracting meaning and feeling and emotion from almost every aspect of music, and I think that for me, it's a huge antidote to that to have a concept album.

You know what, the drummer is my manager. He's busy. And I'm busy. I don't need the dough, though. But having said that, there's a limit to how much bad music I wanna play. I did it when I was young, and some of the music was OK, but it wasn't great.

For me, there's a fine line between telling a story that's fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it's bloodless, a little too fictional.

Everybody kind of understands, Oh yeah you take drugs and it does something to your brain and then you can't stop. It's easier to describe that shame, that horrible feeling of not being able to control your own life.

It's more important for me to have a good record with good music and be part of a movie that's good and where the music is used in a really great way. That's the important thing. The other stuff you want to say about it, I don't care.

Listen, I'm out of this system, man, I'm out... I'm doing better than ever. I couldn't be more happy.

The knock-out punch is always the one you never see coming.

It's funny, because my last record was a lot about isolation and people living in separate worlds that other people can't even understand, which drug addiction is the perfect negative example of.

In the '70s, everybody thought drugs were just good times. People didn't really know about drug addiction, or that such a thing existed. When I grew up in the '70s I thought you had to take drugs. It was almost like I didn't think you had a choice.

There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.

I see ghosts.

You can cut the fat from your spending: Stop taking taxis, call your cable company and ask for the same deal new subscribers get, have dinner at home and then a drink out instead of a $100 meal with wine.

The human race survived the Inquisition. We can survive. It's like the Anne Frank quote: 'In spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good at heart.' Given what happened to her, it's one of the miracles of the world that she said that.

Basketball is a sport that involves the subtle interweaving of players at full speed to the point where they are thinking and moving as one.

I live in a very small town and now that I've closed down my studio, I'm working at home.

Rock stars get room keys, I get business cards. Wherever I go I meet innovators of wind power equipment, solar energy operators.

I just think you people would be happier back in Africa where you came from.

What is hard to remember when you're in the middle of it is that when you get through to the other side, you always walk away with a gift. If you can stand in there and not walk away from it, you get transformed by it.

The simpler things are, the happier they are.

As a general rule, I do not think judges should consider current societal preferences when ruling on constitutional challenges.

How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a legend in his own time?

For me, the dialogue is the easiest part of writing. It just always seems so obvious what a character will say. Maybe it's because I talk too much!

The lens of contract focuses predominantly on gains from trade whereas orthodoxy is focused on resource allocation.

Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.

There is the moral spectrum in 'Fargo,' and you see it in other Coen brothers movies, where you have a very good character on one end and a very bad character on the other.

Half of this business is politics. As real estate developers, it's our job to go in there and get beat up.

The fact is that when you do something from your heart, you leave a heart print.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

This office is smaller than the last one I had. I'm not trying to impress people. I want to be close to them.

In earlier religions the spirit of the time was expressed through the individual and confirmed by miracles. In modern religions the spirit is expressed through the many and confirmed by reason.

Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.

All we have is our vote. But it's powerful.

Paddington Bear was a refugee with a label - 'Please look after this bear. Thank you', and he had a little suitcase.

As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come.