When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.

In the '70s, you had to come up with an album every year whether you were ready or not.

If a hit came along, I wouldn't be unhappy about that. But I'm a bit too old for that now-doing videos and all those types of TV shows. I've kind of done all that, in the '70s.

If anyone comes along, I'm more than happy to welcome them, but I'm not interested in world domination.

I like being a big fish in a small pond. I'm not interested in a huge audience because it brings headaches.

Be a military flier or be in a band; those were the two hippest things I could imagine.

As long as my body holds out, I'll be grooving when I'm 70, and not some sort of horrible spectacle.

All those years we'd spent learning these chops, and all those gigs in Germany where you'd play all night, and along comes punk. It has nothing to do with that. A lot of people went out of business.

I suppose I was waiting until I was old enough to have some sort of experience to sing about. When you're young, it's hard to sing the blues. Nobody believes you.

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.

Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.

They tell me I produced songs. I just stood in the back, wore a good suit and said, Yeah, that's happening.

The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones.

I'm playing to the sort of people who like the same records.

You've got to really know your song, inside and out.

I work very hard on getting the songs as direct and examined as I can before I go in the studio.

Going to Nashville to meet the in-laws was the first time when I'd been in America and not been seen as some sort of eccentric character with a cute accent.

When somebody like Elvis Costello comes along, anybody can make a good record with him.

After 'Gremlins' came out, I should have packed up everything, moved to Los Angeles from New York, and dedicated myself to being a full time film actor. I had the world at my feet.

The man form is higher than the angel form; of all forms it is the highest. Man is the highest being in creation, because he aspires to freedom.

We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see. We are freed by conscious perception.

Hope is a very unruly emotion.

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.

The Anarchists answer that the abolition of the State will leave in existence a defensive association, resting no longer on a compulsory but on a voluntary basis, which will restrain invaders by any means that may prove necessary.

What are the crumple zones on scooters? The helmet is the only crumple zone I can think of.

Money is not the most important thing, but when you need it, there are few substitutes. So while I like the things money can buy, I love what money won't buy. It bought me a house but it won't buy me a home. It would buy me a companion but it won't buy me a friend.

An actor's life is like a series of - it's like the first day of school happening over and over again.

For some reason, young girls, they don't want the guy that's just there.

The overriding goal of counterinsurgency is to make friends: You make friends with the people; you isolate the insurgents.

My nickname is Dickie Jukebox. I own thousands and thousands and thousands of songs.

I don't write that much horror. People tell me my books are scary, but they're not really; I don't go there.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.

Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don't go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world.

Retire? I don't know what that word means. As long as a man is able to work and he's productive out there and he feels good - keep at it.

I am walking proof of the power of prayer.

Handsome is as handsome does

Traveling to the Middle East and playing music for people on the street, for soldiers, for people in hospitals, and for people who lost their homes, and seeing people open up through the experience of music really restored my faith in music, in art, and in culture to change things.

I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Earth was not built to serve the needs of humans.

I never thought it was unusual to write, and I've been writing or pretending to write since before I even started school.

When you make that crossover from life to real life, when you're not treated as a child anymore but as a man, and you are no longer given the benefit of the doubt, it takes some courage to face that.

I was never that kind of star. I was never cast because I was gorgeous.