It's really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.

I want to take some jams and really concentrate on hooking up with Page because, since he's the only one not next to me, and his sound is mainly coming from my monitor rather than through the air, it's a little harder for me to hook up with him.

I'm not really satisfied with anything I have written to date.

Elektra has no control over the live show, at least.

I'm always interested in mixing technology and music. You know, maybe I'll have a MIDI bass pickup at some point, I don't really think that's the direction I would want to go.

Lately Fish and I have been hooking up more, which is a good thing because it's just been a struggle for me as a bass player to play with someone who's so creative on the drums, and lately it's been really good, especially during sound checks.

I think one thing that helped the sound change, it's a real subtle thing; it's just one switch on my bass, it has three positions, and I usually boost the mid-range frequency, I lowered the frequency that I boost, and that goes out to the sound system, too.

Last tour my bass rig was breaking down every other night. That was a pain. We would get on stage and Trey would count off the song, and I'd play the first note and nothing would be there. Those guys would just roll their eyes.

I want to get an handful of spare basses to use first of all if mine breaks, and second, to learn some things about aspects of basses that I like, so Paul can build those aspects into it.

I don't really have a favorite bass player. I listen to a lot of bluegrass. But then again, I'm not a typical bluegrass bass player. I was really into the Grateful Dead, and I still am - I don't listen to them too much, but for me they are a big influence.

This is my second bass that Paul built me. There were some changes that were made. Sometimes I think of changes that could be made having to do with both the sound and the feel. It's definitely a beautiful instrument.

I agree with the rest of the band, that a truly synthesized sound isn't really what I would want to go for.

It's really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.

I haven't written enough songs to be able to say that I have a system. I've only written a handful.

There's no way we could play a country song as well as a country band or a Latin song as well as a Latin band. We could never expect to do that. We just keep doing what we do, what we know how to do. We sound like ourselves.

I feel like I want to write some songs and I don't know how to go about doing it. Usually it's the lyrics that are a problem, and I think I am not really cut out to be a lyricist.

A lot of the great songwriters in history have been collaborators, with a separate lyricist.

Travelling to different countries is a goal. I wouldn't mind playing huge places if we got an opportunity to, but it's nice to play small places too. Fish was saying yesterday that he doesn't ever want to play stadiums, or maybe he would once, he said.

If part of the purpose of making an album is to get some radio play, then you might as well think about that. But that's not really how we picked the songs.

I like to be sort of grounded with Fish. But, at the same time, I think probably what's unique about us is the way other dynamics happen, where I'll play off Trey for awhile. When we start playing a jam, I don't usually know what's going to happen, I don't have a plan.

I'm not really allowed to talk about the Dead though. I think when we are at our best, we definitely do things that the Dead or no other band could do. We explore things and take things to the extreme.

We have been trying to play a lot of different kinds of music, and probably the next album will go back more towards the direction where you couldn't classify each song as a certain kind of music. This album you can.

The worst thing I could be thinking is how could I be a cool bass player.

Surrender to the flow.

The way that we imitate each others' riffs is something that other bands don't do as much. If we're jamming with a jazz band, or I am jamming with a jazz band, I have to catch myself, the tendency is always to do that.

Its really important for the bass and the drums to somehow blend.

I live in a country where I'd say nine out of ten people know me when I walk through the streets. There's people taking pictures, there's tabloids trying to make up stories. I'm used to that. The same thing when I'm in Australia or the U.K.: I get stopped.

Just because I'm talking about something that might have been a sad or painful situation doesn't mean that I'm sad or tortured 24 hours a day any more than anybody else is.

Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

There are no taking days off. There are no distractions. If I had that, I physically wouldn't be capable of going onstage and performing live theater. It's extremely demanding. I have to be in ballet class every day.

When I learned how millions of children go to bed hungry, my only response was, 'What can I do to help?'

I didn't form Kulanu to return to Likud.

I think many of my books, including 'Handle with Care,' including 'My Sister's Keeper,' circle back to how far are we willing to go for the people we love? I think love changes the way we think. It's the thing that takes you out of what your normal set of beliefs would be.

The heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close.

You know, even though I feel that I can still play the game, God has made the answer clear to me. Retirement is now. I have to retire as a Green Bay Packer.

Reagan grows up in 1920s Dixon, Illinois, and it's the heartland of America. It's a time when Americans are particularly drawn to this small town world because it's beginning to pass.

I just am who I am. And then when people label me eccentric or different, I'm kind of astonished because I think, 'This is completely normal. This is just how I am, it's how I've always been.'

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.

If I wasn't serving in Congress, I've always wanted to be a high school teacher. Specifically, I want to teach a course on modern American history and use Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury as a primary text.

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.

Good people sometimes make bad decisions. They mess up, and they let others down. But that doesn't make them bad people. We all make mistakes.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

I can't tell you if genius is hereditary, because heaven has granted me no offspring.

On 'America's Top Model,' I've always told my girls to smile with their eyes. We call it 'smizing.' Over the years, it's actually become part of pop culture. I would be walking down the street, and girls would say, 'Smize!'

A single moment spent in a business meeting or at a pub is more than enough to reveal the basic human truth that we are all faking it most of the time. We congratulate a rival on a triumph when actually we are choking on spite. We are cordial and attentive to crashing bores.

The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

The voice is like a man, like ourselves: we all feel melancholic about what we have lost, the things we could do when we were young. But having the possibility to still perform is wonderful. The voice loses elasticity as you age, but on the other hand, maybe you are more mature as an interpreter, maybe your approach to singing deepens.

It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.

I felt so painfully isolated that I vowed I would get revenge on the world by becoming a famous cartoonist.