Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out...

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They're quite aware of what they're going through.

- Changes

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it's so essential that when I'm involved in the actual process, my so-called 'real life' becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.