It's exciting to be with really, really good people. Some people make you feel like you've got to up your game. Working with good people is always good.
The refinement of morality increases together with the refinement of fear. Today the fear of disagreeable feelings in other people is almost the strongest of our own disagreeable feelings.
I don't want to be in everyone's face. I'm a big music fan, and I get really pissed off when it gets like that and I don't want people to get like that with me.
I don't want people confusing what it is that I'm about. I just stand there and sing. And I don't do stunts or anything. if I wanted to do all that, I don't think I'd get away with it.
I am amazed that Congressmen can pass a bill imposing severe penalties on anyone who burns the American flag, whereas they are responsible for burning that for which the flag stands: the United States as a territory, as a people, and as a biological manifestation. That is an example of our perennial confusion of symbols with realities.
For a stretch of time, I got really caught up in the idea that what people liked about my work was that I was a young guy who was trying to be cool by writing about young people and a certain kind of Bay Area culture that I was tangentially a part of.