I'm perfectly happy for my videos to be on YouTube, whether I'm getting paid for them or not. If they're on YouTube, people will see them. If for some reason my videos get taken down from YouTube, well, I apologize. If it was up to me they'd all be up there and they'd all be free.

I love the fact that no one's ever bought my record because they were enamoured of the way I look. Maybe one person. There must be someone out there with compromised taste.

People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously.

A lot of times good, pristine recordings prevent the listener from getting emotionally involved in the music.

I love the idea of making records that people can use, records that have a sense of utility.

There are a lot of people in the animal rights movement who can be very passionate and aggressive, and I applaud people's passion, but when people are judgmental and aggressive, all you end up doing is getting other people to turn away in irritation. To change people's minds, you have to respect the people you're talking to.

In a perfect world, I would be 6-foot-3 and have a perfect head of hair and look like Orlando Bloom.

I met Elton John at an Interview dinner, and we just sort of became friends. He's got such a wicked sense of humor.

I feel compelled to make art that on one hand reflects and sometimes almost creates like a sense of comfort when confronted with the strangeness of the world.

I think the word 'blog' is an ugly word. I just don't know why people can't use the word 'journal.'

I'll look through 'Us Weekly' and I'll see a picture of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Anniston. And I'm like, 'Wow, they just... they look so good. Even if they're like just wearing jeans and a t-shirt, they still look great.'

Small, bald white guys like myself - we all kind of look the same.

I walk out my front door in New York and I'm out on the street and there are people everywhere. L.A. is so much more spread out, so it's really easy in L.A. to have a little more isolation and to just not see as many people.

In 1991 I did an interview wherein I described myself as a 'teetotal Christian,' which was an exaggeration, although I do like tea and Christ.

I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?

When you say 'failure,' that seems really dramatic, but a lot of failure is just really depressing and mundane. I remember the first time I ever played a concert in Italy. I played a venue that held 900 people, and I think five people showed up. It wasn't a big, 'John Carter of Mars' type failure. It wasn't dramatic; it was just depressing.

I remember New York in the '80s as a place with vacant lots that would eventually give over to nature. Weeds would grow up, squirrels would move in. That entropy is gone now. It's too expensive to let a vacant lot go natural.

I did a cover of the James Bond theme, and I felt like such a fraud, because the original is so good.

I'm envious of people who can sleep as long as they want. I have the circadian rhythm of a farmer.

The strange thing about hotel rooms is that they look familiar and seem familiar and have many of the accoutrements that seem domestic and familiar, but they are really weird, alien and anonymous places.

Call me a nerd if you like, but I do find it hard to leave home without my laptop and a good book.

The good thing about working alone is I get a lot done and I can experiment more. The bad thing is I miss out on the gregarious, social way that most musicians work.

A lot of my friends who grew up in Manhattan have a strange phobia about Brooklyn. It's big and scary and they get lost.

There are a lot of musicians who are still desperately trying to pretend that it's 1998 and by having a huge marketing campaign, they somehow believe that they can sell 10 million records. That's delusional. No one sells 10 million records. The days of musicians getting rich off of selling records are done.