Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

Like the lion tears the flesh off a man, so can a woman who passes herself off as a male.

Too much of nothing, it just makes a fellow mean.

I like spiritual songs. They struck me as truthful and serious. They brought me down to earth and they lifted me up all in the same moment.

Mothers tell your children not to do the things I have done, to spend my life in sin and misery in the House of the Rising Sun.

It's always disappointing when people decide for one reason or another that they don't like your work anymore, but you can't try to please people, because then you're just going to be doing - you'll never live it down, y'know it'll always be dogging you around - you might be being a fake about the whole thing.