Quotes from Steven Van Zandt

Being a rock 'n' roll star ain't a part-time gig.

I just love that whole Brill Building era. I will always regret not being there. That's where I belong.

Believe me, if Donald Trump didn't have some point that he's making, hitting home with people, he could not have come this far - as much as a showman as he may be.

People want to learn how other people live. It's just human nature.

I believe that hundreds of years from now, history will be divided into pre-1960s and post-1960s.

I was deep into it - worldwide liberation politics as well as domestic - but by the end of the '80s, I had decided it all comes down to one single issue: campaign-finance elimination.

Once Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings are not cool on country radio, it's time for a new format.

Touch the earth, speak of love, walk on common ground.

I've always had a reluctance to meet my heroes.

I grew up in a renaissance period, a very lucky time when the greatest music ever made was also the most commercial. We'll never see that again, so for me, there's only one criteria, which is greatness. That's all I care about. Is what I'm doing reaching for greatness? Whether I achieve it or not, that is one hundred percent of my criteria.

For those who are familiar with my work, 'Soulfire' is a return to how most people identify me, which is that soul-meets-rock thing.

Politics, in general, when you're trying to change the world for the better in any kind of way, no matter how small or how big, it's inches.

I played around with the idea of touring with a soul revue, with Smokey Robinson, Sam Moore, Darlene Love, people like that.

You can trace the E Street Band directly back to the Rascals.

I'm not pretending to be an academic, or to have this down to a science. It's strictly my taste. But there is a connection between everything I play and the sets I put together.

The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything.

I know what it takes to make a band, how they should interact, what makes a record sound like it's a band - everything having to do with a band, I happen to be into.

In 'The Sopranos,' these guys know their best years are behind them. They have nostalgia for their old traditions. In their minds, they're looking for a time when loyalty mattered, community mattered. E Street is about community, too. People are looking for something real.

'Soulfire' is a collection of stuff I've done in the past. Each song is an element of who I am: There's a doo-wop song on the album; a blues song, R&B and some jazz. For people who are going to be hearing me for the first time, it's an introduction to who I am.

As an actor just learning the craft, you literally do a scene with Jimmy Gandolfini, and you walk away a better actor.

You want everybody to like your work, but when you look at what's fashionable or trendy, it's pretty obvious that I don't exactly fit.

You have to love what you're doing in order to find the energy.

You gotta love everything you do. You just gotta do it.

I tried to get Primal Scream to come over to America several times.