You get to a certain point in your life where you get closer to the end of your life than the beginning, and it colors your life, in a way.

You meet a lot of people and have a lot of experiences, and they color you and stay with you - but I'm not the grieving widow. Life is much more complicated and interesting and full of zigs and zags than that.

I'm very influenced by landscapes, not so much the way places look as the way the names sound. In this country we've got so many cultures, and the place names - the Spanish names and the Indian names, which are so incredibly musical.

The reason you write [songs] is because there's something you want to say that is important to you - enough to go through all the torture of writing.

Yes, I always say that were a National League band. What I mean is, if you play an instrument, you have to sing. So I always call our drummer up. Even the drummer has to take a turn on the microphone.

It takes a certain amount of courage to let the field lie fallow until you have something to say.

The world has lost a legend, and I have lost a friend. Johnny Cash was the rare soul who could be both.