I think you can't demonize somebody that's on the other side of the political spectrum, or you can't generalize about them.

The poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be.

This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.

I'm interested in what it means to be an American. I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is.

A great singer has to learn how to inhabit a song.

My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.

If you have written really well, people will swear that it happened to you.