Lord, spit on our eyes that we may see, how to wake up from this tragedy.

The people who have impressed me most - and the closest I've come to having heroes - are the people who have devoted their lives to making things better for others. These are people whose names you never hear, people who work for Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and other humanitarian groups. They're just out there in the world, doing stuff.

Most of the time, our deeper, stronger feelings are things we all have in common.

Sometimes I catch myself doing something that I've already done. The more I've done, the more that's likely to happen. Then I just throw it away. I wait until I've got the right way of getting a thing done, which means my songwriting proceeds at a very slow pace. But it's the only way I can really work.

I wear my shadows where they're harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I'm traveling toward light.

Here's Iraq, where irrigation was invented, where law was invented, where writing was invented. All these things that we consider necessities of civilization started there. And the people who live there damn well know that.

I've been accused of being a little pedantic here and there, but I don't buy that criticism. I'm telling it like I see it. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it at all. I'm not trying to convince people of things, other than the fact that I'm trying to make as vivid as I can my own feelings and experiences.