I was like a clock that had exploded- my springs were hanging out, my hands were cockeyed, and my numbers were falling off.

My identity shifted when I got into recovery. That's who I am now, and it actually gives me greater pleasure to have that identity than to be a musician or anything else, because it keeps me in a manageable size. When I'm down on the ground with my disease-which I'm happy to have-it gets me in tune. It gives me a spiritual anchor. Don't ask me to explain.

I neither want it [brandy] nor need it, but I should think it pretty hazardous to interfere with the ineradicable habit of a lifetime.

I stopped smoking. When I stopped smoking, my voice changed... so drastically, I couldn't believe it myself.

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

I was more ashamed that I couldn't work the washing machine than the fact that I was taking drugs.