Largely I write from life. ... I write from what happens to me. Mostly about love. People notice the other stuff more but I write mostly about love.

I want to go to Africa and find a really great hotel with good food right above a water hole where I can sit, have breakfast, and just watch the elephants play in the water.

I've been given a gift [musical talent] - don't misuse it. I spent a lot of time just wasting that talent, not treasuring it, not valuing it, not respecting it, just taking it for granted. That was a hard lesson to learn. It doesn't come for free. Don't do that. Treasure it, respect it, treat it as a responsibility that you've been given, and enjoy the hell out of it.

You tend to write as you get older about family love more than you write about romantic love or ooh baby. ... The stuff that you want to celebrate about humanity has always been there and probably always will be.

The stupid thing I incorrectly believed for a long time is that I believed for a long time that some politicians could sometimes tell the truth.

My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.

I want to look at myself the way I do on purpose, because if you aggrandize and try to look at yourself the way a fan does or the way a reviewer does or the way - God bless them, they all got a right to, everybody's got a right to an opinion about it.