A song versus an album is not like a scene versus a play.

I came out of that and said I don't want to go back to feeling depressed. So I asked myself, what can I be optimistic about, in terms of the course of the planet? And I discovered there was no end to the optimism I felt.

But where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you're worth?

I have odometer readings, kids; all sorts of measurements of what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I get it. I get that it was a while ago.

I am happy to do political fundraisers. I always hope that my friends will be, too. It's part of who you are and you shouldn't feel ashamed of what you believe in.

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.

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.