The best, most solid place to stand as you look at our present situation is on a foundation of history. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Nazi empire all have things in common.

I remember doing "As Cool As I Am" and Steve Miller, the producer, saying "I really hear a drum loop here. I want to play it for you." When I wrote it, I thought, "This isn't going to sound very folky. I don't think it's going to go with mandolins and banjos." Then he played the loop for me and it sounded right.

For my 50th birthday I just want to make it all make sense [being exactly half introvert], and then a couple of weeks later do the blow-out with all my friends.

Being told that you are good at banter is like being told that you are a good person.

I am one of those sort of "lesser" types, those sensitive types, those people who wouldn't have made it on their own if other people hadn't helped them. A straightforward capitalist society would've cut them off and let them die. So I was saved by my friends and by my family and by people who cared about me, and by modern psychotherapy that cared about women.

I would push for more production and Steve Miller would say, "Why do you want to have more production when you have real songs? You don't want to cover up the song."

They preach that I should save the world. They pray that I won't do a better job of it.