There is an established tradition of actors directing films that have a particular, personal meaning for them - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and most recently George Clooney to name a few. Remarkably, their films share an unusually high percentage of being very good.

Steven Van Zandt

War Good Art

World Up T

What the world needs is an Emergency Boss. An Emergency Czar. An Emergency Commander. A true Master Of Disaster. One person completely responsible for the anticipation, immediate reconnaissance, and urgent execution of rescue and relief efforts around the world.

Steven Van Zandt

World Urgent Urge

I am Italian. Springsteen's mostly Italian, too. We're both Italians with Dutch names, one of the many things we have in common.

Steven Van Zandt

Teen Wit Too

I am interested in the interaction of a group of people who have a common goal, or a common obsession, each contributing something unique to make something greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know why, but from day one, that has interested me.

Steven Van Zandt

Great Art Why

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

Steven Van Zandt

Time Art Tim

Boycotts are not something to be taken lightly.

Steven Van Zandt

Thing Thin Taken

My mother remarried when I was young, and my stepfather adopted me.

Steven Van Zandt

Young You UN

I was 100 percent political in the '80s - the first time around, let's call it, my first life as an artist.

Steven Van Zandt

Time Life Art

I was obsessed with politics in the '80s. I've recovered and I'm feeling much better now, thank you.

Steven Van Zandt

Politics You Wit

Timing really is nearly everything. And what it isn't, circumstance makes up for.

Steven Van Zandt

Very Up Timing

They legislate fatherhood in Norway. It's not an option. That's a shocking thing to us in America.

Steven Van Zandt

Way Us Thing

I tend to personally judge issue by issue rather than sort of endorsing this football-team mentality that we fall into in this country, where it's all about the team.

Steven Van Zandt

Men Where UN

It's a challenge every year with a TV series. You want to keep evolving and keep it going. That's part of the fun.

Steven Van Zandt

Art You Year

I learned a lot from Bruce Springsteen and David Chase.

Steven Van Zandt

Teen T Springsteen

The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.

Steven Van Zandt

Life Change Were

Let's not pretend we have too much of a democracy here, because we don't.

Steven Van Zandt

Use Us Too Much

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

Steven Van Zandt

Time Cool Way

I'll never understand why people somehow support pollution. It's completely irrational, and I don't get it. Somewhere along the line, they bought into this fiction that one has to choose between the environment and business, which is just a complete falsehood and absurd.

Steven Van Zandt

Men Business Why

A lot of the idealism of the Sixties was spot on, from the environmentalism to the war to the Civil Rights movement, the women's rights movement, you name it.

Steven Van Zandt

Women War Men

'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.

Steven Van Zandt

Time Men Who

I did 10 years on 'Sopranos,' but the whole craft of acting is relatively new to me. I'm still learning that, and I'll be learning that forever.

Steven Van Zandt

You're either on the Republican team or the Democratic team, and all that matters is that your team wins. Judging by history, regardless of which team wins, the people always lose.

Steven Van Zandt

The River,' to me, meant 43 songs.

Steven Van Zandt

Before Dylan, before rock became art, it was a wonderful fusion of pop structure and personal statements.

Steven Van Zandt

Little Steven - the songwriter, producer, and arranger - stayed alive doing the 'Lilyhammer' score. That pretty much took up three or four years of my life, and all of my musical energy went into that.

Steven Van Zandt

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

Steven Van Zandt

It's become uncool to play other people's songs, and that's absurd. It has got to change. It's the reason why everything's so mediocre.

Steven Van Zandt

First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong.

Steven Van Zandt

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.

Steven Van Zandt

It's so liberating to play a song in front of 50,000 people that you've never played before. Not something you played a long time ago and have forgotten: Never. Played. Before. There's something magical about it.

Steven Van Zandt

Stevie Van Zandt could not walk on to a set and act. I don't know how actors do that! It's the scariest thing in the world.

Steven Van Zandt

Little Richard opens his mouth, and out comes liberation.

Steven Van Zandt

My father was an ex-Marine Goldwater Republican.

Steven Van Zandt

I was very lucky with 'The Sopranos.'

Steven Van Zandt

The energy that comes when you compel people to dance stays with you your whole career - whether you are playing to 100,000 people at Glastonbury or 1,000 kids in a club.

Steven Van Zandt

Half of the modern world goes back as far as Pearl Jam. The real historians go back to U2. But they need to go back further. They have to go back to the '50s and '60s, where things started. That's how you get to be your own personality, by studying the masters. Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!

Steven Van Zandt

I'm always surprised when a sequel is not as good or better than the first one. I never understand that. You've already set your own bar. You've already done the hard work. It should be easier to make the second one, but a lot of the times, it's not.

Steven Van Zandt

The Rascals are something else. They're up there with the Beatles, and Stones and Byrds. That level of musicality. They have a real chemistry. It is like magic.

Steven Van Zandt

Like most people, I've always felt using words like 'best' when applied to art is a fun way for critics to stay busy at the end of the year, and I guess a good way to help get ratings for awards shows, which is fine.

Steven Van Zandt

There is an established tradition of actors directing films that have a particular, personal meaning for them - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner, and most recently George Clooney to name a few. Remarkably, their films share an unusually high percentage of being very good.

Steven Van Zandt

You think your congressman is working all day to get you a job? He may want to. He or she is probably not a bad person. They probably want to do the right thing. But they can't.

Steven Van Zandt

C-17s should be ready to go at various military bases around the world packed with water, food, medical supplies, sleeping bags and tents, all prepared to be air dropped in alongside soldiers and doctors to begin relief efforts.

Steven Van Zandt

Within three hours of a disaster event there should be a recon damage assessment of the infrastructure and an educated guess as to the casualties and degree of imminent human peril. Then make the airdrops of supplies and personnel. Simultaneously, Seabees would be dropped in, with lights and generators, to begin rescue efforts.

Steven Van Zandt

Let the wealthier countries and corporations of the world fund an Emergency Organization.

Steven Van Zandt

I've always considered the government taking one out of every two dollars I earn absolute tyranny.

Steven Van Zandt

As most of the population suffers through life, barely surviving, disappointed and confused day after day, hopeless, wondering what happened to their strong and beautiful country, it is in the media's power to restore, if not some of our quality of life, at least a bit of our peace of mind.

Steven Van Zandt

I'm a real band guy, you know? I'm really good at certain things, and the band stuff is one of them.

Steven Van Zandt

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.

Steven Van Zandt

My lifelong friend and mentor Frank Barsalona is gone. And the music business as we knew it went with him.

Steven Van Zandt

Rock n' roll as a genre is different from pop and hip hop: it is about bands, and that for me suggests brotherhood, family, friendship and community.

Steven Van Zandt