Great work comes from great joy. Leave the angst for the movies; do art - that is fun.

I want love to roll me over slowly stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around.... I want love to walk right up and bite me grab a hold of me and fight me leave me dying on the ground.

I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul and honesty of the blues.

I'm one of those people that you have to keep your eye on or I'll wander off into the woods and forget to come back.

Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.

I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange.

We don't have to live up to the expectations of others. Passion is personal. As long as our passion is fueled with the right stuff then keep on plodding forward. I'll never be Mark Twain or Tom Clancy. But that's okay, because neither of them could teach you to mix a boundless number of grays, or where to place the catch light in a portrait.