If there is such a thing as a workaholic, I'm it, and that's what passes for leisure.
Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.
I think it's obvious that democracy is something that is contagious, and it always has been.
I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.
Making art in America is sort of a political statement in and of itself. It's not the best environment for that sometimes.
My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.
Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.
I'm used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.
There's a long tradition of people from the South living in New York City.
The creative core of New York has never been native New Yorkers; it's people from all over the world.
You can listen to carpenters talk for hours in Ireland. The people have a relationship to words that I don't think you will run into anyplace in the world.
Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.
I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.
Having a child at 55... that's optimism.
Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.
Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.
I love e-books. I can carry the complete works of William Shakespeare around with me all the time. Just think about that. Whether I'm on an airplane or wherever. Being able to have a library in your back pocket basically is something I support.
We're so terrified of death in Western culture that we have to make up a myth of an afterlife. I think there's something to be said for living your life very mindful of the fact that you're going to die because I think you carry yourself differently. It doesn't have to be this big, negative bummer.
I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.
I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.
