There is a 'patrician arrogance' to James Taylor that accounts in part for his popularity while it at the same time explains the critical resistance to his work.

The early Bob Dylan was compulsively drawn to the conflict between stability and the search for immortality.

Elton John himself never seems pretentious but Bernie Taupin's lyrics often do - sometimes pretentious in a clever sort of way, but pretentious nonetheless. There is a conflict between Elton's and Bernie's personal styles, no doubt about it.

Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician's accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist's accomplishments.

I always find with dramas that the more that's left to the imagination of the audience, the better.

My advice to young people wanting to make music and to be in this industry is to really spend your time making music. Make so much music you have no friends. Make music. Figure out what it is you love, and... because if you're making cool art, then everything else will fall into line.

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.

When television captured the popular imagination of the 1950s, a rash of movies satirized Hollywood while also mythologizing it.