I'm not having to show off or make a point about how good I am at doing something. I think I've always kind of been that way.

People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!

Sometimes I hear news about the huge dollars involved with CEO pay and corporate-management salaries, and I'm mystified at how someone can justify taking that much at the cost of other people's livelihoods. In a bizarre way, I'm almost kind of curious, like "How can they absolve themselves and enjoy their wealth?" I don't understand it.

It's important to have a life and spend time outside of those things [music and politics], in order to appreciate what you've achieved as far as just spending time with people you love, and doing things like painting.

I probably get strangers coming up to me two or three times a week to just say something nice.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere Underneath my being is a road that disappeared Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead Overhead.