When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

I wonder what all those Chinese poets sound like in Chinese. I like their distilled quality.

It's like first grade where you make all your mistakes and people see it and yet some people see that there's something there that's really valuable. That's the way it went for more than 2 years almost 3 years of playing.

What's really fun is to write under different names.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I'd buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful!

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

I think almost every woman artist I've ever met has this ideal of being in a partnership working situation with a man, that men don't seem to share. They seem to want this ideal thing, that we'll always be together and work together.

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.

I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.

I really don't have that much interest in stardom.

All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something.

You have to have that organizational principle behind the song.

Emily Dickinson has great sound and sense.

I don't see us as a big media gimmick band. We don't have a cultivated appearance or anything like Kiss.

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live. Unfortunately, its not the way the music business works. If you don't create some kind of public image, it gets created for you.

The song Venus de Milo, the whole subject of it is Love is a drug.

I was the first Navy, Marine or Air Force person who had been an astronaut to return back to the Air Force. I had certain expectations about what would be a reasonable and desirable position to be assigned to after my years of service.

I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.

The strong bond of sisterhood was a famous trait in classical art and literature about Amazons. But it was modern people who interpreted that as a sexual preference for women. That started in the 20th century. The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva declared that Amazons were symbolic of lesbianism in antiquity.

I'd like to work for as long as possible and form connections with the labels I work for.

When the Jewish people, after nearly 2,000 years of exile, under relentless persecution, became a nation again on 14 May 1948 the 'fig tree' put forth its first leaves. Jesus said that this would indicate that He was 'at the door,' ready to return.

Dont ask yourself what the world needs ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.

I don't believe that there's such a thing as objectivity in much of journalism, but I think there is a serious effort to and a regard for facts and into taking that stuff seriously is very important to the public discourse and it's very important to democracy.

I don't use a lot of words unnecessarily.

I, of course, meditate for two hours every morning. It's part of my schedule; I wake up at 4 a.m. every day and I love it.

I believe in legacy. And I believe in making the radio sound better. If I gotta listen to it, I want it to sound good.

Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combines youth, vigor, and good looks with the promise of political change. Like Kennedy, he grew up in unusual circumstances that distance him from ordinary American life.

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

I'm John the Fourth, so I think there's a lot of things in life that have been truly handed to me by the hard work and the pain of others.

In a prime-time address, President Bush said he backed limited federal funding for stem cell research. That's right, the President said, this is a quote, the research could help cure brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and whatever it is I have.

The grass is greener where you water it.

They know enough who know how to learn.

I have a Guinness Book of World Records entry as the most-watched person on television; now I have a new entry as the only man who has a crab named after him.

Discourse is fleeting, but junk mail is forever.

I love Washington, D.C.; I love this country, but I think over the last hundred years we've built up would I call an arrogant empire: people who think the rest of us are too stupid to make our own decisions.

I think the pageant system is about empowering women. I think that aspect of it is great, but when you take parents who are forcing their children to do anything, I don't think it's healthy.

If we are going to reverse the race to the bottom, workers must have the right to engage in collective bargaining.

If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.