wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It’s not something you do just to advance in life. Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty.

Elliot, he has such passion for what it was we were doing that he instilled that passion in me. He was like, “Just go for it. Make it happen.” And I would give him some wild idea, and he’d say, “Go try it.” It was that next set of just knocking down the fear of failure. Just go try anything.

He asked me to go through the evidence of the cases, which I did. And at the end of it he said, “Well, you have one thing missing.” I said “What, I thought I covered all of the bases. I made the best arguments that I think the evidence would support.” And he looked at me, and he said, “That may all be true, but you’re missing passion. You related this crime and your evidence in a very impersonal way. How did you make the jury want to convict?” I said “Well, the judge charges them, tells them they have to convict if I prove my case.” And he said, “No, sentencing, not sentencing, finding someone guilty is a huge responsibility. You have to make people believe it’s what they have to do. And you have to make them believe that the evidence that you’ve presented gives them basically no choice.” And so I said, “How do you do that?” And he explained to me that it’s in the manner that you present your case. It’s in the manner that you show how passionately you believe in what you’re doing. And in how much you believe that you’ve actually proven your case and that they must return a verdict of guilty. And his words have led me to believe that that passion is what guarantees success in life.

The one thing that I learned from Clint, of the many things I learned from Clint, is to always trust your instinct, and don’t think about it too much.

I don't know why that is. To me, they’re making much more... interesting records. They’re saying more things I’d prefer to hear, lyrically and song-wise, and that’s compelling.

Boy, being a parent is a hard job, I think, because in parenting you want your kids to like you. Too much sometimes. It’s a hard line to find between doing what’s necessary to give them the tools to be good kids and make good decisions and all that, versus just completely not giving them a chance to accomplish anything because you do everything for them. I kind of feel like it’s okay if these kids go out and make a few mistakes, because they’re going to learn. The last ten years have been interesting, because I’m a stepparent to three kids, and I’m a father to two kids, an older and a younger. And it’s a real interesting dynamic.