It`s better to burn out, then to fade away.

Traveling there was really boring so I headed for the ditch. It was a rough ride but I met more interesting people there.

[on Kurt Cobain, who quoted the Young song "My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" in his suicide note] The fact that he left the lyrics to my song right there with him when he killed himself left a profound feeling on me, but I don`t think he was saying I have to kill myself because I don`t want to fade away. I don`t think he was interpreting the song in a negative way. It`s a song about artistic survival, and I think he had a problem with the fact that he thought he was selling out, and he didn`t know how to stop it. He was forced to do tours when he didn`t want to, forced into all kinds of stuff. I was trying to get a hold of him - because I had heard some of the things he was doing to himself - just to tell him it`s OK not to tour, it`s OK not to do these things, just take control of your life and make your music. Or, hey, don`t make music. But as soon as you feel like you`re out there pretending, you`re fucked. I think he knew that instinctively, but he was young and he didn`t have a lot of self-control. And who knows what other personal things in his life were having a negative impression on him at the time?

[about his 1974 tour] "Oh, that was a fabulous tour, one of my best. Over in England, The Rainbow . . . Bristol was the best ever . . . the Festival Hall . . . those were magical gigs. I did an encore at the latter with nobody there but Ahmet Ertegun, who owns Atlantic Records. I said, "Ahmet, I played so good tonight I think I deserve my own private encore". So we went out and played "Tonight`s The Night" for the fourth time that evening [bursts out laughing] with no one left in the theater.

[when asked if punk rock influenced his 1979 album "Rust Never Sleeps] No, I wasn`t really influenced by that scene. Most of the songs on that album had been written well before The Sex Pistols were ever heard of. "The Thrasher" was pretty much me writing about my experiences with Crosby Stills & Nash in the mid-`70s. Do you know Lynyrd Skynyrd almost ended up recording "Powderfinger" before my version came out? We sent them an early demo of it because they wanted to do one of my songs.

All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don`t subscribe to any of that. It`s all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the `70s sounds nothing like the stuff from the `80s, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the `90s. Who`s to say what is and isn`t a certain type of music?

My my, hey hey. Rock and roll is here to stay.

Remember when you used to watch TV in the `60s and you`d see Perry Como in a cashmere sweater? That`s what rock`n`roll is becoming. It`s your parents` music.

It`s better to burn out than to fade away.

Live music is better.

Studios are passe for me. I`d rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

One of the most important jobs of any musician is to provide quality sound to the people. Quality has taken a hit in recent years, but it`s starting to come back thanks to DVD-stereo. There is just no comparison between DVD-stereo and a regular compact disc or even 5.1 sound. It`s the difference between a true reflection of the music and a mere replica. I`ve always been a strong believer in analogue and this is about as close to the rewarding listening experience of vinyl as the real thing.

I`m not into organized religion. I`m into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we`re all just part of nature.

If we reformed we`d be like a statue or something. A monument with birds shitting on our heads. That wouldn`t be right.

Bush has polarised the country, creating a breeding ground for opposition.

To be rid of Saddam was good for the Iraqi people. But the manner in which it took place,maybe there was a better way to do it. Our leaders lost patience.

I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else.

It was from him I got the idea you could be whoever you want to be, just make up a character.