Years ago, when I was playing with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks on Yonge Street, Neil and Joni were playing Yorkville for people sipping cappuccinos. There was no one sipping cappuccinos where we were. But even though we were on different sides of the tracks, there was a unity. Music was warming up to become the voice of a generation and we needed to join forces to make that noise, to possibly make a difference. I kinda miss that today.

[on making music in the late seventies] A lot of people at that time went into this tunnel of insanity and decadence and self-abuse, and didn't come out the other end. It was a rugged and ragged journey.

[on whether fame was a contributing factor to his breaking up with The Band] It's hard to be clairvoyant enough to see if things would've been different. In the beginning, you're all single and in it together. You mature in different directions. Everybody grows in their own way. And so you start seeing things through different lenses.

We tried to do things that had a musical sensitivity. As everybody else was getting louder and louder, we were getting softer and softer.