A lot of the songs start with an image. I was sitting there playing the guitar and I pictured this old dirty green car with the window rolled down in the hot hot hot Texas heat and this beautiful woman I knew when I was a kid sitting behind the wheel looking out at me.

I'm just attracted to playing people who are ostensible unlikable. That's not to say that there's something in there that makes you care. It might be that you just find them so awful that you just can't stop watching like a car crash.

I don't put myself on Jeff Beck's level but I can relate to him when he says he'd rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.

When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.

Sometimes I think our problems are made worse by the kind of business we're in. Playing these road shows is a weird experience.

I gave up lots of things I love doing: writing and business and playing the piano and so on.

Government's role should be only to keep the playing field level and to work hand in hand with business on issues such as employment. But beyond this to as great an extent as possible it should get the hell out of the way.

Every few seconds it changes - up an eighth down an eighth - it's like playing a slot machine. I lose $20 million I gain $20 million.

If you aren't playing well the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.

The fastest way to succeed is to look as if you're playing by somebody else's rules while quietly playing by your own.