I'm in the theater because of two plays: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and 'Death of a Salesman.'

I had a high school girlfriend whose mother gave us theater tickets, so I saw the second night performance of 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' My girl and I could not get up during intermission, we were so stunned. To this day it's the only thing I've seen on stage that's 100 percent real and 100 percent poetic simultaneously.

I keep coming back to it, over and over - adultery and cheating. It's the most interesting problem in the theater. How else do you get Oedipus? That's the first cheating in the theater.

I never understand when people say, 'Do you do comedy or tragedy?' I don't think they're very much different. They both have to be true, and there isn't a great play in the world that doesn't have funny parts to it - as 'Salesman' does, as 'King Lear' does. The whole idea is to reflect life in some way, which means surely you have to have both.

I came to love silence, because it's so rare, and it's now my favorite aural condition.

Music is also supposed to be fun. On this record, (titled 'III'), I really had the desire again to jump back into some good-time, fun-loving songs.