Music used to be essential and meaningful, but now it's disposable.

I'll always write music. Whether I release a record, whether I let the public hear it or not, I'm always writing music.

You can't listen to what people who aren't musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don't want to hear, 'Your kid is ugly.' But I knew the record was good and it would sell.

The hardest thing to do in this business is to still be around. When music changes, when labels' resources have dried up, it becomes harder and harder to continue to make a living at this.

I am a writer - that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

There's no substitute to being successful on an actual chart.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.