Pleasures of the mind have this advantage,--they never cloy nor wear themselves out, but increase by employment.
The cruelest lies are often told without a word The kindest truths are often spoken, never heard
I'm romantically inclined. No human being on Earth is not attracted to other people. There is no fairy tale that they only have eyes for you. You just choose to act on it or not.
I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.
Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there's a lot of subtlety. That's what I'm proud of.
Billy Joel and Joe Jackson were both great, and they both play piano.
I'm not really a strange person or anything, so if there's music I like, usually there's other people who like it too.
I go to Chinese Christian community. Jesus looks Chinese. I go to Japanese Christian community. Jesus looks Japanese. I go to Brazilian Christian community. Jesus looks Brazilian. How come in America Jesus looks white?
Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another.
The literary interview won't tell you what a writer is like. Far more compellingly to some, it will tell you what a writer is like to interview.
As an experience, as a listener, for me, I miss the record store. I miss going in and knowing the guy at the counter and being like, "Hey," knowing that he was going to hate the record I put on the counter, and still buying it. That takes some guts.