It's funny; Luther and I have written many songs together, but we've never written songs in the same room.

I didn't want my last chapter to be the guy who sits at the piano and sings love songs.

The only thing that's a little tricky about it is sometimes people assume that if it's a new song, it's a reflection of what you're feeling or going through now.

I really didn't have any plans to record prior to doing My Own Best Enemy.

My joke, which isn't really a joke, is that there will be one of two tours: the tour for the album that does well, or the tour for the album that stiffs.

I think I do better when things are a little tougher.

I've never, ever in my life enjoyed playing live the way I am now.

I love when people get songs wrong. I love when people take something from a song that's totally not what I intended!

I understand that, but this disc shows the type of music that I've always liked and wanted to make.

In the past, there has always been so much pressure about carrying a show and promoting a record.

So it was just a case of getting a bunch of songs that I had been writing for years but hadn't recorded together, and the result was My Own Best Enemy.

And to any new fans we made along the way, I say... welcome to our party. It's just starting to get going.

I've never written a song that I thought was a hit.

It never ceases to amaze me that I get to do this for a living.

When things are too easy I lose interest in them so I find ways to complicate them to get myself interested.

One time Robert Plant was set to check into the same room after I checked out, so I removed every light bulb and ordered up a bunch of stinky cheese and put it under the mattress.

I fell off stage and bruised some ribs. The worst part was that the audience didn't realize I was gone.

People take songs so literally.

I'm happy, I would say that I'm one of the happiest people I know but I've certainly had periods of profound sadness, depression and heartache and those are the kind of things that are interesting to me to write about.

I think really what I'm saying is that I thrive on adversity.

But I'm just having fun playing and giving Botox injections to the older songs.

But once you have some success in one style, the business wants to lock you in that vein forever.

I've always loved groups like U2 and Coldplay.

I can't wait to front my band with these new songs and play for fans, but I've decided to keep my day job too.

As a songwriter, there's nothing better than winning Song Of The Year. But I couldn't really celebrate, because it wasn't right. Luther wasn't standing next to me, to receive the award.

I have complete freedom, and there's no way to get pigeonholed or bored. What could be better than that?

I'm now so keenly aware that I have everything to prove and nothing to lose.

I don't think I've ever laid out a batch of songs that pick myself apart the way that these do.

It's funny; Luther and I have written many songs together, but we've never written songs in the same room.

Doing my own album provided me the opportunity to say whatever I wanted.

But more importantly, I think he remembered how very close I was with my own dad, who had died in 1997.

It's funny, 'cause it seems like just yesterday that I was the youngest player just starting out. But now there are young players all over the league, and they'll ask me questions about playing overseas or finding an agent.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

I sometimes lie awake at night trying to think of something funny that Richard Nixon said.

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

You amaze me. You're 229 years old and that's what you think is funny.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realise the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.

Half of the great comedians I've had in my shows and that I paid a lot of money to and who made my customers shriek were not only not funny to me, but I couldn't understand why they were funny to anybody.

There's a constant flow of child actors. It's kind of funny to watch the new crew come through. I think, You poor little things. You're going to have to struggle for a long time.

For sheer sexiness, a man must be beautiful. Funny. yes. Clever, no.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

Books are funny little portable pieces of thought.

I had an idea of what I thought was funny. It's kind of based on how I am.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp. The funny thing is that human rights activists and Mr. Bush can never be situated in the same group.

So to me, Texas Hold 'em puts me to sleep. At least when you play stud, you can be funny as you deal. Somebody some day is going to come up with a Stud show that's going to work.

Great, big, serious novels always get awards. If it's a battle between a great, big, serious novel and a funny novel, the funny novel is doomed.

Baldwin is sort of getting to be a bit funny. I don't know what happened, but a few years ago they suddenly went bankrupt and Gibson bought the whole outfit. Since then they haven't seemed to be doing an awfully good job of providing pianos.