You cannot combine being a movie star with not being a movie star. I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something. Yeah, I wasn't chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn't planned by anyone. One man's style must not be the rule of another's. The face of evil is always the face of total need. Sometimes you have to find the passion. It comes from the inside... Everyone has to find it for themselves. I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't. To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune. We do not want riches, we want peace and love. We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we? In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now. Life is too short to be living somebody else's dream. We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood. I want to be here for a long time, so I am going to do everything I have to do to be here. And I want to walk my daughter down the aisle and give her away to somebody some day. I want to make sure I am still here to make sure my two young sons become men. About the only other thing I'd want would be a wider neck. My fingers are so fat that sometimes I deaden the string next to the one I'm fretting. This could be done in part, because the equipment was very inexpensive. Not much money was involved in tooling so that basic changes of that type could be accomplished. Yeah, touring can get rough some times and draining, but I always have to pinch myself and realize that I'm doing what I love. They told me I'd never probably see the front-line area. I didn't raise Todd to be a writer, but he happened to be one anyway. Leadbelly's guitar is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. But the important thing about learning to wait, I feel sure, is to know what you are waiting for. Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. The bass player's function, along with the drums, is to be the engine that drives the car... everything else is merely colours. Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance. Arnold and Jamie Lee must have worked over the years with directors that did 50 takes, because I'd get like three takes or so and say, Ok, that's it, we're done. If I could do anything over, I'd have spent more time with my first set of children. I would have taken more quality time with them, for sure. This is the best biography by me I have ever read. I never say no.