In a poem, the words happen; they just come. I let them. Otherwise, I wouldn't write. To interfere with what is happening is to distort the poem. Just a very small degree of intelligence and supervision is necessary. Very tactful. Any revision later that violates the text as it came, that begins rewriting the words, is fake.

What is forgiven is usually well remembered.

The residue of religion in my work appears as a modified transcendentalism, and the positivist scientific side of my thought appears as concreteness and realism. The effort to reconcile the two is at the core of all my poetry.

The quick success was a bit strange to get used to.

I worked with fantastic actors, fantastic directors. People I would never otherwise have met. Was I limited? Yes. Did I use it as I could have? No. But I was always ambivalent about Hollywood and what I wanted. And ambivalence in our business is no good for success.

We don't really want to work for a corporation; however, we do aspire to one day make a barbecue sauce that doubles as a cologne, and we would like to promote that ourselves. We would like to create a cologne barbecue sauce benchmark of success.

In business, you can have one massive success that earns $50 million overnight, and that's it. You're successful. End of story. But in the music business, you have to keep on doing it.