People say, oh it's a shame, you're not nostalgic about the '60s. Well actually, it's quite good, when you think of it. Wouldn't it be sad if I was s….

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer..

I do think there are deep structural things that are wrong in the world..

I'm just a very primitive, infantile folk singer..

I'm not full of malice, but I do dislike Neil Diamond a lot, and I'm sorry that I've done a Neil Diamond song..

I don't want an entire world full of people just drinking Coca-Cola and eating McDonald's hamburgers and listening to American pop records. That woul….

My heroes are people like Picasso and Miro and people who at last really reach something in their old age, which they absolutely couldn't ever have d….

In the past, so many of my records, really, have been sketches for records that never really got made..

Because of my politics, people think I'm anti-American. But I was quite the reverse. What I don't like about the United States is when the government….

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question..

In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead..

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and droppi….

I think it's hypocritical to complain about the rise of China. For 50 years, we were telling everybody in the world that the big threat was Communism….

I know people who grow old and bitter. I want to keep making a fresh start. I don't want them to defeat me. That would be suicidal..

In fact, when the fires of empire get hidden, they still stay burning underneath the moss, seething away. This is true with a lot of the countries wi….