I'm not trying to be the new anybody.

I don't cringe when I think of doing old material. A lot of the people have been with me through the years.

Folk-rock hasn't changed much over the decades since the Byrds started it.

There was just no way I could leave this little Martin guitar in my apartment overnight or even in the afternoon, and expect to find it there when I got back.

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

So I played the acoustic guitar and harmonica and stomped my foot and I think I was right in assuming that Greenwich Village would be the best place to perform my own material and possibly get some attention, move on to making records and all.

I've had an advantage; I've had a sort of open public acceptance in New York that doesn't happen to just anyone trying to make the transition you were talking about.

I wouldn't be interested in just doing a show that's mapped out and choreographed with a set list. That would've been boring so long ago it just wouldn't be any fun.

And the music, as far as a type of music, it's still pretty viable.

You don't see a lot of difference between the Gin Blossoms and the Byrds.

I'm not trying to be the new anybody.

I relate to the audiences and they know me. It's pretty real.

But I'm able to just keep going, and that's the challenge. It's the next song. And then just enjoying the shows and people who come out to the shows. It's pretty organic, really.

It's often said that life is strange. But compared to what?

As you get out and try to do things, you always find that in order to make an idea a reality, it goes through some changes. It doesn't always come out exactly like you envisioned it.

For as long as I'm able to write songs and sing them, it's just about making them ones I feel proud to sing again and again.

I have a knack for writing tribute songs for people who will never know about them.

I like getting requests from audience members.

I'm never gonna be a Carlos Santana - an instrumentalist. I just like songs. It's three minutes of something that can be very powerful.

I'm still trying to make it. I'm still trying to get this over and do it and hopefully leave some kind of a mark on the course of American music, particularly in the tradition of what you might call the singer-songwriter.

If something doesn't work, you have to admit it. Always try to find what's going right and what's going wrong with your music. If you can, pool your resources and record yourself; do that frequently.

It's not like making records is terrible. Still, I do find the writing of the songs and the live shows to be the things that give you the most clear picture of what it's all about.

Music should be truthful and real, but it should also be healing and uplifting.

My priority doesn't lie with the whole website and Facebook and such; I'm still walking down the road in a pair of real shoes. You need to just play as much as you can. Get in front of people, as I've always said. It doesn't matter if it's ten people at an open mic or opening a show for someone. Play all the time.

People can't stay out of their cars. I do think we have a real problem staying out of our automobiles. We have a real dependency on them, and it may be for more than just transportation.

You have a song, and people know it. It's like a calling card for you.

You start to think in terms of making an album that might be greater than the sum of its parts. It's sort of like having a lot of footage and then editing it into something that will make sense to a viewer, you know. Sometimes it might involve even working on an older song that might complete that picture.

Androgyny is not trying to manage the relationship between the opposites; it is simply flowing between them.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

I am playing with the assumptions that we have in our everyday life when we are tripped up or fooled and we learn something, that makes things exciting - I am having fun with that stuff, but you have to manage it so it doesn't get too cute, that's what I trying to work toward.

'Thou shalt not get found out' is not one of God's commandments; and no man can be saved by trying to keep it.

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

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.

Votes are like trees, if you are trying to build a forest. If you have more trees than you have forests, then at that point the pollsters will probably say you will win.

I'd been trying for all of the eight years we'd been married to have a child, and finally I did.

Yeah; I'm a much better blues player than anybody knows, but being in the kind of group I'm in, we were always trying to make popular records.

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.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.

I've always done food that can work in a set time frame. The message I'm trying to get across is, it doesn't have to take three days to do this. With planning, you can do a lot and really have quality food every day.

I meditate a lot, but I am constantly in pain. I'm trying to live with this. You just have to accept it.

I trained and trained and went up against Kurt, then being a world champion in '94, and after that I did Tommy's tour and then my tour and all this stuff and just trying to deal with it all. And now, I've just kind of backed off a little.

You feel the music needs something but you don't know what. So you start searching, fitting, measuring, trying. Every time you try another angle. And sometimes that's frustrating, especially if you don't come up with something for three days.

Trying to give back a little bit is important.

Intimacy comes from being yourself on the stage and making the audience feel, without trying, that you're sittin' down there with 'em, playing, and that can happen in a big hall, if you have a good audience that want to listen.

While advances in scientific research have led to some new and exciting treatments that have enlarged and enhanced the quality and length of human life, we must not lose sight as to what we are trying to accomplish.

Playing polo is like trying to play golf during an earthquake.

Orlando's a part of me. The next guy's a part of me. And the next guy's a part of me. That's all I'm trying to do, is tell cool stories that people can relate to.

In modelling, there is no point in trying to prove you have a brain, so why even bother? I'd sooner save the energy for something more meaningful.