I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.

I think criticism, or a critical engagement with history, has a good deal to do with a willingness to be fooled.

It's very lucky when you have an artist - whether it's a novelist or a filmmaker or a singer - whose career you can follow from the beginning and feel that you are in some way part of it, or part of the same world that it comes out of.

When I'm struck by things, I want to hear more and find out more. I remember when Lana Del Rey was on 'SNL,' this supposedly disastrous performance. She's doing this pretentious torch song, and I thought, 'I don't know what she's doing, but it's really moving me.'