Every One Of Joel's Important Songs--including The

I Look At Camping The Same Way I Look At Horror Movies. All The Years That Humans Fought To Get Into Caves And Into Shelters - It Almost Seems Sacrilegious To Go Outside And Sleep Without A Roof. We Work So Hard To Have These Things!

In The Eight Years I Worked At Newspapers, Even During A Little Stretch When I Was A Film Critic, I Was Never, Ever Doing Exclusively Criticism. In The Daily Newspaper World, Much More Value Is Placed On Reporting Than On Thinking Abstractly About Art. The Eight Years I Was In Newspapers, I Was Mainly A Journalist In The Conventional Sense, And Just Doing Criticism When There Were Opportunities.

But No Matter How Many Times We Re-rank The Presidents, In Another 200 Years, The Top Presidents Will Still Be Washington And Lincoln And Jefferson, Because They Defined What A President Is. They Are The Idea, And You Can't Be Better Than The Idea.

It's Peculiar What You Remember When You're Not Trying.

I Can Tell When I've Met A Bad Journalist When They Say, "i've Met Madonna," Or "i Know Marilyn Manson." Because I Haven't Met Anyone I've Ever Interviewed. I've Sat Down In The Position Of An Interviewer, And They've Sat Down In The Position Of An Artist Trying To Promote A Product. We Have No Relationship. I'm Able To Ask Them Questions I'd Never Be Allowed To Ask Them If We Were Casual Friends. It's A Completely Constructed Kind Of Situation.