My upbringing made me think that real legitimate music is written, not heard.

I wish I was a little more gregarious and outgoing.

I choose to express myself.

Strats are my favorite electric guitars, and I've got quite a collection.

I had gone full-on folkie; I'd had it with bands.

I never going to satisfy everybody, so I decided to satisfy myself.

I wanted to pay tribute to my musical influences: Buffalo Springfield, Lightfoot, the Beatles, the Hollies.

My dad was vehemently opposed to electric guitars. He did not look on that kind of music as legitimate in any way.

I had never done TV. I think it's a foolish medium for, most rock 'n roll music. Nobody ever comes off well on TV.

I love to rock 'n roll. But my finest suit, of all the things I do, is as a songwriter.

I may quit the music business someday, but never the music.

MTV didn't call. I guess I wasn't hip and groovy enough.

It was so much fun playing simple American bluegrass. I got to meet Doc Watson.

I love home. I'll stay up there for days on end, I won't even go down the driveway to look for the mail.

I was blessed with a gift. It's a gift and a curse. It never ends.

I always try to give my songs as gifts.

Now is the only thing that exists.

You're successful if you can get one person to pick it up and put it on the turntable and go, Wow, thanks for writing that!

It was quite a shot in the head to do the album and then have it shot down by nonmusical idiots.

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

Coming out of college with a degree in fine arts and painting isn't worth much any more.

I love to laugh, it's my main thing. I love to abuse the English language.

My upbringing made me think that real legitimate music is written, not heard.

My life is as an artist, not an entertainer. I don't consider myself an entertainer, but I can do that thing when I want to.

It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians.

My grandfather gave me my first guitar, an old acoustic with palm trees and dancing girls painted on it.

A simple smile, a tender touch, speaks the true language of love.

We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now. And tried to reach beyond the emptiness, but neither one knew how.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

That music and the lyrical aspects of Razorblade Romance is so personal to me that, now with me being grown up a bit and meeting new people and doing new things, it makes me look at the same things I was writing about back in the day through a different colored lens.

The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know.

My big love was the Beatles. I was more into music.

When we started making electronic music I imagined that the reaction we got from the rock musicians must have been similar to the one the beat groups got from people like my dad.

Uhm, I'm the one wanting the lessons! I don't want to say too much about it because I'd rather have you see the movie, but he's trying to find his music.