"A songwriter's supreme challenge is being complex..." - Quote by Paul Simon

“Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.”

“When I first heard Elvis perform "Bridge Over Trouble Water" it was unbelivable,and I thought to myself, how the hell can I compete with that?”

“The dialogue between what's going on in the world and what's going on internally seems to be a natural thing - well, it's natural to me, anyway, to have these thoughts.”

“I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like everything happens for a reason. When you date a guy and it goes badly, that's horrible. But if you can write a song about it, then it was worth it.”

“Poetry and lyrics are very similar. Making words bounce off a page.”

“All of my songs are autobiographical.”

“One should adpot only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand--or escape.”

“Caution has its place, no doubt, but we cannot refuse our support to a serious venture which challenges the whole of the personality. If we oppose it, we are trying to suppress what is best in man - his daring and his aspirations. And should we succeed, we should only have stood in the way of that invaluable experience which might have given a meaning to life.”

“The characters get challenged. Through getting challenged, the character arrives at insights or discovers potentials that he or she didn't know they had.”