Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work I really wanted more than anything else to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it.

If you start by promising what you don't even have yet you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it.

I gravitate toward women.

Men and women should stay apart till their hearts grow gentle towards one another again.

No one is more arrogant toward women more aggressive or scornful than the man who is anxious about his virility.

In regard of the rich grace and wisdom of his love toward his people for who sees not but that it is a curse to be unready as these foolish virgins who were therefore shut out.

What President Bush did in his doctrine of preemptive strike and in his war in Afghanistan and in Iraq was to turn even his allies in Europe negatively toward America.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong and multiplies instead of indemnifying losses.