I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War.

The thing about Hemingway that people forget is that all the stuff he did was at a time where people weren't traveling that much. At 19 he travels to Italy. He goes to the Spanish Civil War. He goes to China he goes to Africa so at that time to travel that much is really incredible.

I took Spanish in high school and I didn't do too well in it. My Spanish teacher told me not to go on with Spanish anymore so I was discouraged a little bit.

The only consistent hobby I've had is studying Spanish and French because of some delusion of grandeur to work around the world. I love sports but usually I'm looking for the next job.

I could speak Spanish fluently growing up but I'm so out of practice and I have such a tremendous respect for songwriting in the Spanish language.

And it is because a series of elements in Spanish life which operate today the same way as they did in the times of Blanco White made obvious my relationship with him based on a similarity in Spain's condition.

When I hit a block regardless of what I am writing what the subject matter is or what's going on in the plot I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why but it calms me calms my brain.

From my music training I knew that some Spanish rhythms apart 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it sounds as it surely should sound.

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English Spanish Yiddish Swahili any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.

First of all the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.