The congregation that I was raised in was one that sang and a non-instrumental fashion. It was all a cappella singing, and so that had a major influence on me.

I needed to get into a nightclub and stand up and present the material that way. I needed to present it live.

It's more in retrospect as I've thought about it over the years and look back at what I wrote, how I wrote things - like there's a song that Ralph Stanley later recorded with me that he had guested on my record what was called "Travelers Lantern" that I wrote as basically, you know, a hymn.

I always knew about as a kid, knew that that particular injury at [my grandfather's] finger had been caused in that disaster that killed his brother-in-law, my grandmother's brother. And he never talked about his own brother's death to me. My mother told me about that and told me about the impact on her family. And that's part of what you hear in the first verse of "Miner's Prayer."

We share something in common with the fabric of the whole universe that connects us.

Film acting has been a very pure experience, because you have to give the purest form of yourself as an artist.

Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself.