"I love my life now because I'm doing much more ordinary things, and to me that brings great joy. We're more ordinary than ordinary people sometimes."
"In New York, we go to Harlem on the subway -- a great evening at the Apollo. We walk through Central Park after hours. You may find us murdered one day. Last time we went it was snowy like moonlight in Vermont -- just fantastic. And I figure anyone who scares me, I scare him."
"We try never to organize our lives very much. We do things on the spur of the moment. We were in Scotland and we decided to take a trip to the Shetland Islands. So we piled in the Land Rover with the two kids, our English sheep dog, Martha, and a whole pile of stuff in the back with Mary's potty on the top. On the second day we get up to a little port called Scrabster at the top of Scotland. When we tried to get on the big car ferry, we got in queue but were two cars too late -- missed it. So, don't despair. Okay, make the best of it. We really didn't want to go on that big liner, a mass-produced thing. So we thought, let's beat the liner. But we gave that up -- it became a bit difficult with airplanes and such. Let's try to get a ride in one of the little fishing boats, and how much should we offer."
"So the romantic idea was that they'd rather have a salmon or a bottle of Scotch than the 30 pounds. I went to a bunch of boats but they weren't going to the Orkney Islands. So I went on this one and I went to this trapdoor sort of thing, and they were sleeping down below -- the smell of sleep is coming up through the door. At first the skipper said no, and then I said there was 30 quid in it for him, and they say they'll take us. It was a fantastic little boat called the Enterprise and the captain named George, he's wearing a beautiful Shetland sweater. We brought all our stuff aboard and it was low tide, so we had to lower Martha in a big fishing net and a little crowd gathers and we wave our farewells.
As we steam out, the skipper gives us some beer, and Linda, trying to be one of the boys takes a swig and passes it to me. Well, you shouldn't drink before a rough crossing to the Orkneys. The little one, Mary, throws up all over the wife, as usual. That was it. I was already feeling sick. I sort of gallantly walked to the front of the boat, hanging onto the mast. The skipper comes up and we're having light talk, light chit-chat. And I don't want it. So he gets the idea and points to the fishing baskets and says, 'Do it in there!' So we were all sick, but we ended up in the Orkney Islands, and we took a plane to Shetland. It was great."
"We do things like that -- do it sort of eccentricordinary because we have got the money to do it eccentric. I always wondered what happened to those maharajahs who used to do things. But there never are really any of those people. So we try and do a bit of it in our own lives."
"People do recognize us sometimes, but they respect our privacy. It's a beautiful thing. If you come on as a star, you get star treatment and all the disadvantages. But often, when we dress in dungarees and sneakers -- Last night we got turned out of two restaurants. The guy in an evening suit turns us out. But I quite like it when they chuck us out."
"I love to find that, even in this day of concrete, there are still alive horses and places where grass grows in unlimited quantities and sky has got clear air in it. Scotland has that. It's just there without anyone touching it. It just grows. I'm relieved to find that it isn't all pollution. It isn't all the Hudson. It's not all the drug problem. When we are in Scotland we plant stuff -- vegetables -- and we'll leave them there, and of their own volition they will push up. And not only will they push up and grow into something, but then they will be good to eat. To me that's an all-time thing. That's fantastic. How clever! Just that things push their own way up and they feed you. We don't eat meat because we've got lambs on the farm, and we just ate a piece of lamb one day and suddenly realized we were eating a bit of one of those things that was playing outside the window, gamboling peacefully. But we're not strict. I don't want to put a big sign on me, 'Thou Shalt Be Vegetarian.' I like to allow myself. I like to give myself a lucky break. Give yourself a lucky break, son."
"So I think you've got to live your own life. That sounds like one of those statements, but it is, in fact, just very necessary to realize that. And particularly necessary for me. Or else someone else is going to be living part of your life for you. But now I would like to stop talking and get up and get to work. I haven't done any today, and it's beginning to frustrate me. I've got that album to finish. We've got to get back to plant the seeds. Nature doesn't wait."
