Who told you I was a musician?

What I do and what I record only work for the moment.

I'm sad and blue, about nobody but you. I told you that I loved you right from the start, you told me the same and now you try to break my little heart.

Lonesome. Lonesome. I know what it means. Here all by my lonesome, dreaming empty dreams. Weary. Weary at the close of day, wondering if tomorrow brings me joy or sorrow.

I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss of death.

It can even be a single note which defines the entire song.

Who told you I was a musician?

I extract what I consider the best material from different sources. But often the material I perform comes from a very strange location in history, which are minstrel shows.

Home is where you hang your hat.

I don't do anything mysterious on purpose. I'm less than forthcoming, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm mysterious. It just means I'm not inclined to go there.

I don't have a home. I'm on the road, more or less.

I don't think music should be played anywhere near politics. The two don't go together.

I got out of the music industry many years ago. I had a charlatan for a producer who I wanted nothing to do with. He's dead now, so I guess I can't beat that horse any more. It left a very bad taste in my mouth, so I just went on about my business doing what I do and not involving myself with record companies, except for distribution.

I have a visual sense for the music. It has to stay true to a certain sense of period. I rely on a sense of colors and mood in my approach to the arrangement.

I just do a random roulette wheel version of what I've recorded or sometimes tunes I haven't recorded. It's a collection of whatever happens, happens.

I tend to notice work.

I think there's a preoccupation with the American market to make excuses and justify its past. If it isn't current, it means somebody has to make an excuse for it. If it's 'cult,' it gives it a sense of illegitimate legitimacy.

I would like to speak 10 languages.

I'm not interested in stirring anybody up through music. If you're going to stir people up, it has to be a thought process that has nothing to do with music. I see music as having to do with an internal thing. Something that stirs you up is external.

I've got a very behind-the-scenes personality. I don't know how I became a performer. I like to stay discreet, out of the public eye, very low-key.

If I had mastered the Spanish language to any extent, I might have gone in that direction.

If you're not interested in history, if you're living for the day, you need some sort of cliche hook. I certainly don't think of myself as a cult anything. It's a strange thing to even consider pursuing.

Music doesn't really require whether the person's a young person or old person for whatever kind of music it is.

My views on music, and life in general, are completely out of step with everything that's going on. I've always been out of step. The only thing that interests me is history, reviewing the past and making something out of it.

Other musicians are basically personalities who want to make a name for themselves. All I do is sing old songs in the best way I can. What else is there to know? If you were a blacksmith, what would people need to know about you other than whether you can make a good horseshoe?

The only thing that interests me is history - reviewing the past and making something out of it.

There's a little Christmas in all of us, I guess. Even in me.

Make sure your worst enemy doesn't live between your own two ears.

A journey into space is the greatest adventure I can imagine.

Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force.

I'm really happy in my own skin.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On 'Rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.

I've been writing stories, in one form or another, since I was a kid.

Donald and I still really wanted to be together, but I was fighting to keep what we had privately, and once the world gets involved in your life, little by little it breaks it down until you forget what it was in the first place.

To me, what makes an artist is a unique personality that they're not afraid to let show.

When I was 17, I was excited to graduate from high school!

It is scary for an actor when you get hired as a lead. No matter what the plot is, it is your job to do something interesting enough to make them want to get inside the lead character's head.

Gravity wins over all other known forces.

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.

When death is imminent and dying patients find their suffering unbearable, then the physician's role should shift from healing to relieving suffering in accord with the patient's wishes.

We're trying to run a 21st century society and economy with 19th century Darwinian, competitive, crude ideas.

Good physicians are rarely dispassionate. They agonize and self-doubt over patients.

From now on we live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle; we just decided to go.

Getting married isnt going to make your relationship better. Its just a ceremony.

Part of me looks at the gay movement now and worries that we're losing our individuality.

I love getting the pontoon boat out, and I don't get to do it as much anymore. If I know in two weeks or a month from now I've got three days off, I can start planning for that stuff, getting out there with friends and family and relaxing, just floating around and hanging out.

The venture business is a bit of an apprenticeship business, so the firm I worked for didn't let me make an investment until I was 30. That was probably a very smart thing.

One of life's best lessons was not being afraid to look foolish - to just ask the question.