If you want to believe that humans walked with dinosaurs and the planet is a few thousand years old, that is absolutely fine with me. If you want to teach this to your kids, I don't care. If states want to teach creationism in their schools, there is nothing I can do about it, so I don't sweat it.
Being unique is never easy, and often, by the time culture catches up with you, there are only a few people who notice.
To combat the confusion and depression that assault me when I come off the road in the middle of a tour, I seek the most oblivionated music possible. When it's the 'way out there' that I seek, I go right to my stash of amazing music from Japan.
When you are young, there is so much ahead of you, it's like the Saharan desert. You can't even see across it.
When you hear about what someone else is going through, and you are unable to distance yourself from it or in any way muzzle your empathy and are inspired to actually do something, these are moments to learn from.
It is instilled in thousands of American males from an early age that one of their requirements is to be able to both dish out and take a lot of pain. They are taught the rules of this road in gyms, rings, backyards and fields all over America.
I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singing Black Sabbath songs year after year, whether he was performing with Black Sabbath or out on a solo tour. He said it was great.
I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant.
Where there is young people and vitality, you're going to find punk rock.
Now and then, someone is able to look at an empty space, conclude it would be a great place to start a revolution, and bravely go forward.
The public library system of the United States is worth preserving.
Never once have I thought that Social Security would be something that would ever be available to me.
I get along with Australians really well. Everyone's usually really cool, and it's always a drag to leave.
Unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela had and still has many detractors.
I always found the Chicago audience to be a smart, fast-moving, violent and cheerful lot, and it's always good to be back.
I'd like to talk to Sean Hannity in a controlled environment and say, 'O.K., you can't interrupt and jump up and down like a professional wrestler.'
I'd love to talk to Janeane Garafalo or Randi Rhodes or Stephanie Miller from Air America. I'm an Air American junkie; I listen to them every day.
The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly.
I was in Pakistan in Islamabad when Bhutto was assassinated, and the next day, you know, there's just plumes of smoke everywhere. I mean, Islamabad is on fire.
The arts in America exist in spite of America, not because of America.
My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.
Texas is a hotbed of insanely good bands and musicians.
The best compliment I get every year is that a band will write me and say, 'We were just on tour, and we had people coming to our show saying they had never heard us before they heard us on your show.'
Trying to write music, be in a band and keep it all happening is one of the hardest, morale-destroying, heartbreaking things you will ever try to do - and that's when it's going well.
Michele Bachmann is always a great person to go to for an opinion about anything. She has a very active and interesting mind.
