We always thought the Tom Tom Club could change to anything, but it acquired this image, which was cartoon animation and this real light-hearted dance music.

When we were making Speaking in Tongues and Remain in Light, we were jamming. From that we were taking the best bits and then recording and improvising on top of those.

You learn just as much from your failures. Sometimes you love your failures even more.

Talking Heads, for me and Chris, was a very personal thing that we shared with a lot of people. In a way, I'm glad it's over, because it allows us to move beyond the restrictions that followed.

Art is not predictable. Art is not golf, as great as that may be. There are 360 degrees of choice to make.

We always thought the Tom Tom Club could change to anything, but it acquired this image, which was cartoon animation and this real light-hearted dance music.

We had our unhappy moments but they got channelled into the kind of sadness that was necessary for singing a song about going nowhere. So it worked out very well I think.

I like the idea of Wild Infancy, of people who have a deprived background, of starting out wild.

David is purely a conceptual artist. He didn't play any instruments or paint or anything. We were painters.

I wasn't originally a bass player. I just found out I was needed, because everyone wants to play guitar.

Make it, not make it? What's the difference? Music is a language, it's a dance of life, and it can be a part of your life without being something that earns.

It's a cruel, heartless world out there in commercial rock 'n' roll, and when you take as much time off as we did, eight years, booking agents don't know if you'll draw.

When Talking Heads started, we called ourselves Thinking Man's Dance Music.

We don't really have more than acouple of solos. It's just the way our music is put together.

I don't want to wreck my voice. I love to concentrate on playing the bass and keeping it very rock-solid. If I were singing, I would have blown out my voice.

We groove off of everything, any sort of live show. The inner dialogue you're having with yourself, between you and the music, is for me the search for God.

I would really love to work with Paul McCartney. Isn't that arrogant?

Stick to your instincts.

I have respect for those who make money at art and do it well and smartly, because that commercial aspect keeps the world going and running, in a sense.

Even the Beatles found it hard to escape their image; they were trapped by it.

We're not getting paid. We have these great musicians with us and it gives us a real charge. And the audience gives us a charge, because they keep it interesting all the time.

We don't always know what we're doing. We often just get excited, put something down, and say, 'Oh, neat'.

Many Japanese painters and calligraphers would change their names intentionally to keep their relationship to the art always fresh. This way, others' expectations can be avoided.

I think the idea of having the show divided into two parts was that Tom Tom Club opened for Talking Heads in Europe, and it was the best we'd ever had as an opening act.

If you have this passion for music, you don't stop doing it - it chooses you and doesn't release you.

It's hard to be perfect, It really is. I keep learning things after I've already bungled it.

Sometimes you don't want to be a slapstick clown in order to convey a funny perception of the world.

Richard Lloyd of Television is one of my favorite guitarists. His mentor was Jimi Hendrix when he was just 14. Jimi was always pounding everything he knew into that kid.

It's just such a pleasure to bring a talent you respect to the world.

I play bass. I don't have to go out there and screech.

Sometimes, you have to go through a phase whether you like it or not.

Generosity is the key to all relationships. To friendships and bands. Thats the golden rule.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

One of the best animated films I've seen come out of Disney was the Tarzan movie. I wasn't crazy about the story or the design on Tarzan's face, but the traditional animation was spectacular.

Animation is tremendously resilient. Animation will recover, as art always recovers. There's always cycles of good art.

When The Simpsons came around, there really was nothing else like it on TV. It's hard to imagine, but when Fox first took the plunge with it, it was considered controversial to put animation on prime time.

But probably for the last ten years or so, I've been fitting in animation work into my other projects.

So many plays with magic in them that would be a terrific invitation to an imaginative animation team.

Animation scripts tend to be much more descriptive and are lighter on dialogue.

I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.

The success of The Simpsons really opened doors. It showed that if you were working in animation you didn't necessarily have to be working in kids' television.

I love doing the voice of Batman because of the quality of the animation. The music is particularly incredible. Another bonus is getting the opportunity to work with some very respected actors who do not usually do voice work.

We go through, I think, six different drafts of each script. And then my shooting it is roughly, you know, fifteen percent of the total work that gets done on a show. Then it's all post-production animation after that.

Look what Disney's done to their animation department. There wasn't an animator in charge of their animation unit!

I miss animation very passionately. Not continuously, but every once in a while I would die to do another film.

The animation of the canvas is one of the hardest problems of painting.

Animation is about creating the illusion of life. And you can't create it if you don't have one.

In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.

Yes, actually. Animation's a very easy thing to watch on tour.