I think we in the Alpha Band, which was a strange group anyway, weren't dealing with any of these issues. They sneaked up on us and took us over, before we know what was going on.

I got out of high school, bought a recording studio and started operating it as an engineer and a producer.

If it is true that we have a personal relationship with God, then that's enough for me.

Everything around a writer, or musician in the record business, probably everything in all the United States or in all of western civilization, is about competition.

You know, the thing that struck me about Civil War music was how bloody it was; it was full of hatred. There was incredible vitriol in it.

At different times in my life I met God from a different point of view.

Almost everything The Beatles did was great, and it's hard to improve on. They were our Bach. The way to get around it may be to keep it as simple as possible.

The record business is dangerous to the health of bands and individuals, which is something I'm just now learning. But it's not dangerous in any of the ways people think; it's not that they try to make you compromise your art. That's not the problem.

My original idea was to produce and not make records myself.

In other words, I'd say the whole story of Bob Dylan is one man's search for God. The turns and the steps he takes to find God are his business. I think he went to a study group at the Vineyard, and it created a lot of excitement.

I love loud music. I listen loud, and that's part of how I've learned how to do this. Record softly and play back loud and a whole other thing happens.

I made a few records here and there by default, but I wasn't ever comfortable in that role. I wasn't comfortable on stage. We'll see how it goes this time.

I want to write songs and play them for people - live.

I'm not going to get in to an argument with anyone about the relative merits of Judaism and Christianity, and what it means for a Jewish kid to be a Christian - I'm just not interested in that argument.

Still, records are documents of a period of time. Most records are documents of two or three years, and I just approached it as a record I was doing over a 20-year period of time.

I naturally wanted to be saved, so when I came home I told my mom I wanted to be confirmed. That's the way I related to it, being raised an Episcopalian. I went to Dallas and got confirmed.

But my point is these Civil War songs were gruesome. The hatred that's so bad in this country today, and for the past 10 or 15 years, bad as it is, is nothing compared to the kind of things people would write down and sing back in the Civil War.

I figured out early on what I wanted to do.

It's also ironic that in the old days of tape and tape hiss and vinyl records and surface noise, we were always trying to get records louder and louder to overcome that.

I think we in the Alpha Band, which was a strange group anyway, weren't dealing with any of these issues. They sneaked up on us and took us over, before we know what was going on.

I've seen a study in the last year that digital sound actually induces stress in the listener.

The pride and presence of a professional football team is far more important than 30 libraries.

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

You sweat out the free agent thing in November then you make the trades in December. Then you struggle to sign the guys left in January and in February I get down to sewing all the new numbers on the uniforms.

You can get really left of centre influences in mainstream pop. Michael Jackson and Prince are some of the most progressive artists ever if you actually dissect their songs there's some crazy stuff going on.

I want to go wherever there's great work. I'm a huge fan of film primarily. But you can get a great TV show and get attached to it. Making a great film is forever, though, so I always want to be part of film. It's my first love.

For me, it's a compliment to be compared with Marilyn, the unforgettable actress, the most beautiful one of all. But, curves aside, we have very little in common.

I've always believed in challenging Republicans where they think they are strongest.

Every knave is a thorough knave, and a thorough knave is a knave throughout.

I've only gotten directly offered two or three movies, ever. I don't have the luxury of being able to say no a lot, and I don't really have the luxury of just getting to pick and choose certain things. If I did, I probably would choose even more different roles than I've played.

There's a duality in every man and every woman.

Skepticism is a useful tool of the inquisitive mind, but it is scarcely a method of investigation.

It's funny because unlike back in the seventies when I made hardly any money, today I could just live off the past if I wanted to. I have no interest in that.

The most dangerous thing in the world is the sin of self-reliance and the stupor of worldliness.

I wish the world could better know this country for what it really is. Not just a greedy economic giant crouching fearfully behind its walls, not just a panoplied warrior nervously fingering his weapons. What is this, is a people who gather together in thousands to give a people's government its essential vitality.

Be a girl with a mind, a woman with an attitude and a lady with class.

My children are magical creatures and I love them to death.

If you're going to educate the public and tell them how things happen in the courtroom, then you really owe them the duty to do it right. Don't misinform.

The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.

My big thesis is that although the world looks messy and chaotic, if you translate it into the world of numbers and shapes, patterns emerge and you start to understand why things are the way they are.

But I think the only thing that annoys me about that is if I suddenly find someone on commercial radio or something like that, mimicking my voice or actions and trying to promote a product and pretending it's me doing it.

I just hated school. I don't like to learn. Don't teach me anything!

The essence of a tragedy, or even of a serious play, is the spiritual awakening, or regeneration, of the hero.

Well, you know, the definition of second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.

The best advice I was probably given and the best advice I could give someone who is trying to get into the comedy field is to take advantage of every opportunity you have to work to hone your skills.