I follow cool. When I went up to see Steve Jobs, I said, 'The party's at this guy's house.'

Every artist and every song has an idea, and the producer's job is to capture it.

I learned how to do absolutely nothing - I didn't learn one thing in high school. If I had to get a job at the A&P, they had to teach me how to sweep.

I'm interested in listening to the people who walk in the door. If your ego and your accomplishments stop you from listening, then they've taught you nothing.

The American middle class always wants to be upper class and is scared to death of being lower class. It's a highly mobile group of people. They're not like the people that want to be shopkeepers forever, have always been shopkeepers and want always to be shopkeepers. These people mostly are insulted by being called middle class.

Philosophy means nothing unless it is connected to birth, death, and the continuance of life. Anytime you are going to build a society that works, you have to begin from nature and the body.

So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb.

I was personally opposed to the death penalty, and yet I think I have probably asked for the death penalty more than most people in the United States.