There are records that, in my opinion, only reach their full potential when the listener is disoriented.
I want to change things for the better, just like everybody else.
Imagine a 15-year-old kid saying, 'I have two moms - it's cool.' I don't fear that at all.
In the summer of 1991, I was on the first Lollapalooza tour. Nightly, I would watch Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell go out in front of a sea of people and within minutes have all of them in the palm of his hand. I have never seen anything like it since.
I would like go to Palestine and interview people there about what their lives are like; same thing in Iran.
If you listen to the way I speak and watch the way I conduct myself - there's nothing about me that's rock n' roll. It's like, 'Hello, I'm in a rock n' roll band'. 'No, you're a narc.'
'Fox News' will one day come to an end. Led Zeppelin will not. It's as simple as that.
Why do you think the old stories tell of men who set out on great journeys to impress the gods? Because trying to impress people just isn't worth the time and effort.
I don't mean to be arrogant and I really appreciate my fans but talking about what I am doing is not something I'm good at. I do what I do and that's it. I want to get back to my work and do more of it instead of talking about it.
When you're going into an employment environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community.
If I were a doctor, I would prescribe that you addict yourself deeply and irrevocably to music and never, ever seek cure outside of more music. It really is the best drug available.
It is just that I don't want a wife and I don't want kids.
I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work.
What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.
I have come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time to have too much pride in anything. Perhaps it's good to have a sense of duty, a jealous zeal to protect or improve, but pride ultimately is only that which stands vulnerable to offense and degradation.
The only difference between me and others is that they think they can change something with cute little poems, nice cards or embracing trees and being nice to little lapdogs.
Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.
Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.
For me, jazz will always be the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.
I wonder what it's like to be from a state that is spread across a few islands way out in the Pacific Ocean, only added to the United States in 1959. Not only that but to be the birthplace of America's first black president? Pretty cool, I bet.
Humans are pretty crafty but will fold quickly in severe cold.
Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.
In Israel, there's a lot to learn from anyone, because to live there you've got to deal with the truth. Things happen real fast. Your day goes from cool to catastrophic in one second. Israelis know that the cafe you're in could blow up, or the shopping mall, and they rock that.
I'm most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I'm on the road where I am supposed to be. I will be where I'm supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.
As performers grow older, I reckon there are two ways they can go. They can either be up there, playing more deeply from their guts than ever, or they can be phoning it in so crassly that it leaves a lump in your throat as you leave the venue at the end of the show.
We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success.
'The Great Gatsby' is a book I have read a few times, and it seems to get heavier every time I come to visit.
Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.
When I see the hatred exacted at Mr. Obama - you know, he lowered your taxes, killed your number one bad guy and got your guys out of Iraq - I don't understand why he seems to inflame people so much. You know, unless, unless there's a race problem.
We Americans are hard on almost everything. We are hard on our vehicles, our marriages and our heroes. Mostly, however, we are hard on ourselves.
Michele Bachmann is always a great person to go to for an opinion about anything. She has a very active and interesting mind.
August in sub-Saharan Los Angeles is one of the great and awful tests of one's endurance, sanity and stamina.
I have been curious about Haiti for many years. The history of the country is as fascinating as it is turbulent.
We know that in September, we will wander through the warm winds of summer's wreckage. We will welcome summer's ghost.
I have come to regard November as the older, harder man's October. I appreciate the early darkness and cooler temperatures. It puts my mind in a different place than October. It is a month for a quieter, slightly more subdued celebration of summer's death as winter tightens its grip.
One person's disaster is another person's talking point.
