The worst thing about me is that I'll buy albums and put them away on the shelf and forget that I've got them.

Don't call my lyrics poetry. It's an insult to real poets.

I am a simple vessel with complex overtones, opinionated on occasions but willing to listen. Comfortable with reclusiveness and devoted to privacy and family. Patriotic to a fault and allergic to cruelty, ignorance and bad music.

My Mother set me on the right track, Marty Robbins made me want to write songs, and Jesus Christ did the rest.

'Captain Fantastic' was the first album in history to enter the (American) album chart at number one. We did it for a second time after that. Now that's not a boast, that's frightening.

Early risers catch the world waking and see its true colors.

My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.