There are times when I think, if I were a bit more famous, life could be easier in terms of work because producers want bums on seats, and they're going to get bums on seats if they get a name, if you have had that series on telly.
Everybody likes to listen to a song because it's fun, and nobody wants to sit around and listen to 'I-really-have-to-analyze-these-lyrics' songs all the time.
What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet. We're not thinking about anything else. We're not thinking about any kind of power. We're not thinking about any kind of struggles. We're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That's not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.
Political parties exist to get bums on seats.
It's nice to stretch in different directions and use different muscles. You can get swallowed into Hollywood, where it's all about bums on seats and how commercial a film is.
When I was going through all the divorce things, that was really hard to discuss, because nobody wants to talk about their failures. Nobody wants to talk about how painful those kinds of things are.
The whole key about the no-huddle is getting first downs because if you're getting three-and-out, it kind of defeats the purpose.
Just because you sell millions of records it doesn't guarantee bums on seats.
For me, promotional thing about some new album coming out destroys a lot of the excitement of making records. Records, movies, books - they're not supposed to be like math books. The purpose of them is to kind of take us out of ourselves and give us some sort of alternate experience or respite. To try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs. It kind of defeats the purpose.
I did a gig in the U.S. once for the homeless. I said 'It's nice to see so many bums on seats.'
I just don't really listen to music. I'm probably missing out, but I don't want to know what everybody else is doing. Nobody is strong enough to not be influenced. And I don't mean influenced by copying - I'd be influenced because I wouldn't want to do what someone else is doing. I want to be able to do whatever I feel like doing and not worry about anything.
Censorship always defeats it own purpose, for it creates in the end the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
A great story poorly told doesn't do anybody any good at all, and nobody wants to hear it, and nobody wants to read it. The craft of it is really more important than the subject matter.
When some people were going around being surf bums and tennis bums, I was being a gallery bum. I really liked galleries.
The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.
The world wants the kind of men who do not shrink from temporary defeats in life; but come again and wrestle triumph from defeat.