Sensitivity isn't being wimpy. It's about being so painfully aware that a flea landing on a dog is like a sonic boom. I enjoy a lot of mystery.
I don't really go on what people say so much; I go on their voice. I go on their energy at the time. I go on how close their arms are folded into their chest.
Grace is what matters in anything - especially life, especially growth, tragedy, pain, love, death. That's a quality that I admire very greatly. It keeps you from reaching out for the gun too quickly. It keeps you from destroying things too foolishly. It sort of keeps you alive.
I once took a ride to the beach in L.A., and all along the shore there were all these so-called jazz places. And I saw these college guys and session players playing this fusion Muzak stuff. It was just a lot of notes, and the more notes they played, the more it kept them from expressing anything. So I came back home and got out my Zeppelin albums.
On my record cover, you can barely see my face. I still think I look really geeky.
All these people that want to make me out as part of Generation X had better watch out, or they're going to get X'd out themselves.
If you're going to write, then write a novel with a Haitian woman in it and try and describe her accurately. When you can do that, you can write about people.
I don't see myself in an ivory tower.
People have a certain perfection about them, no matter who they are. Like when Janis Joplin sang. Gorgeous!
You can't be, like, smashing guitars against Marshall stacks all the time. As a matter of fact, after a while, it just looks like posing - it never really gets down to any message or any real expression.
Life's too short and too complicated for people behind desks, people behind masks to be ruining other people's lives, initiating force against other people's lives on the basis of their income, their color, their class, their religious beliefs, whatever.
I'm lying in my bed, blanket is warm, this body will never keep me safe from harm. I still feel your hair, black ribbons of coal. Touch my skin to keep me whole. If only you'd come back to me. To feel you at my side, wouldn't need no Mojo Pin to keep me satisfied.
The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?
I'm concerned with the future. I'm concerned with my life, my present, my friends, people I love, people who love me. I have no intention of taking on a legacy that wasn't bestowed on me.
I am very observant of people's character.
A song just doesn't have verse-chorus-verse. It could just be one line. There are Chinese love songs that you have to learn one melody for a three-minute thing, and nothing ever repeats. I like that.
I'm sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don't even exist. And even though I'm pierced myself, I'm sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.
There are thousands of great artists that wouldn't be doing the same kind of work if there were no music business machine. The ones who are popular would be doing much different work, too. Michael Bolton would be pumping gas.
When I sing, my face changes shape. It feels like my skull changes shape... the bones bend.
The people who raised me musically are my mother, who is a classically trained pianist, and my stepfather.
