Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

I've always felt that if I ever got cynical, I would have to stop making music because I'd just be poisoning the air.

Our imagination it is our greatest ally . . . Imagination is a very, very powerful thing. It literally invents the path before you.

I think inside every rock journalist, there's somebody who wishes they had the courage to live the life that they're not, and that they're writing about. But at the same time, inside every songwriter, I guess there's a wish for happiness.

If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. So you're in Chicago. If you stand on the corner of Belmont and Clark, and you do that for three years, you'll pretty much have seen everybody in Chicago pass that junction.

Everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking. Busking, you learn people, you learn about reading people. You learn about reading the atmosphere of the street. If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. It's almost like you get to know personality types, just by watching people walk past. You get a sense for things.

Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown.