I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.

Nobody went out to pasture, and a lot of people are doing their best work. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Sting are at the top of their game. I mean, Tony Bennett is the coolest guy I ever met! We have to figure out how to break out of this age ghetto.

When they were putting oil rigs up and down the California coast, the whole issue of safe energy and the addiction to fossil fuels really came into focus.

I like to think I get better with age, but maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I just want to be as good a person as I can be.

The generation I grew up in was the beginning of "stand up for yourself," whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn't have put up with guys treating us less than equal.

I learned a lot about what it was like to have to use different hotels and not use the bathrooms, which made me more determined to be an activist.