I couldn't have written things like 'Low' and 'Heroes,' those particular albums, if it hadn't have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.

We can be Heroes, Just for one day

I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 - for albums, anyway.

I'm not one of those guys that has a great worldview. I kind of deal with terror and fear and isolation and abandonment.

Searching for music is like searching for God. They're very similar. There's an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don't exist.

I've made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I've made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I'm proud of what I've done. In fact it's been a good ride.