At times I experience hardship in trying to find the proper point of balance between traditional things and my own personality.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

What I was trying to convey there was the kind of waste land that was left after the war. It was a bit like one always thinks of war, you know, stark scenery and no birds, no trees, no leaves, nothing living. And just emptiness.

If you're going to use standards as criteria for signing musicians, you can sign thousands. If you're going to use some sort of conceptual interpretation that's based on the tradition of those standards, but is trying to move away from it, you're down to about 10 people or so.

Left wing, right wing, I am wingless and tired of trying to fly. Here comes the ground.

If we fight our enemy using the same inhumane and morally bankrupt techniques that we are trying to stop, we will simply become what we have beheld.

I don't want to be Babe Ruth. He was a great ballplayer. I'm not trying to replace him. The record is there and damn right I want to break it, but that isn't replacing Babe Ruth.

Always when I directed the play, I was always trying to cast people not who were necessarily like the characters, but people who I felt had the essential component that the character had, some kind of soul for it.

Part of the challenge of Most Wanted is trying to become the most notorious street racer on the pavement.

In trying to scramble out of a hole, it sometimes digs it deeper.

I look back at old photographs and videotapes, and I go, Who was I trying to be? Who was I doing this for?

Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, 'Sure, every time.'

These people are artists. These people are musicians. They're taking it out and trying to express it that way.

I would go visit my mom on Sundays, and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody, then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.