What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music.

As a musician and a songwriter it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

The human heart is greedy; it will use religion, color, or any other excuse to justify its greed. Blame the human heart.

Sadly, I do my homework. I've a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I'll read C. Fred Bergsten's defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It's embarrassing to admit.

My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them.

The great moments of rock 'n' roll were never off in some corner of the music world, in a self-constructed ghetto.

If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.