There's only one thing that's certainAnd that's everybody, everybody's hurting

My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.

Bob Dylan led me to this kind of music - and it's his and ours. And it's nobody else's.

I think that these are different times, and different things are available to artists, and certain things have become passé. You've already seen the outcome of a lot of things that seemed to have a lot of potential. We've already heard that, and I can't tell you if it made a difference or not. But we already know that artists can do that, and they shouldn't feel threatened by doing it. They're probably not going to change the world. They're going to change a few people's perspectives and maybe make somebody's day at times, if they can.

You have to have a work ethic and you have to be educated in what you're doing. You have to take it seriously. It doesn't mean that everything you do has to be serious. But you've got to have the tools.

Artists are not going to put somebody new in the president's chair. It's all worth the effort; it all needs to be done. But I don't look at songwriting as having the ability to necessarily do that today.

The trouble, dollIs not moving mountains, butDigging the ground that you're on