It's kind of limiting using your intellect to write songs like Brown Sugar, isn't it? The only thing I'm really interested in is comparative religion and ancient history.

It's the thing to do, to tell all the teeny-boppers, "I dig The Beatles" and you sing a song like "Yesterday" or "Michelle". Hey, God knows, it's such a cop-out, man, both of those songs. If you go into the Library of Congress, you'll find stuff a lot better than that. There are millions of songs like "Michelle" or "Yesterday" written in Tin Pan Alley.

Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.

You don't expect music to be brilliant when the films are so bad.

The martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.

When I hear something that comes from me that makes me fall down off my chair, it's not often.