Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

I feel like if you let someone else create your vision, then it's not true to your band. No one can ever do as good as you want, or as good as you can yourself.

['Fire and Rain'] is sort of almost uncomfortably close. Almost confessional. The reason I could write a song like that at that point, and probably couldn't now, is that I didn't have any sense that anyone would hear it. I started writing the song while I was in London...and I was totally unknown.... So I assumed that they would never be heard. I could just write or say anything I wanted. Now I'm very aware, and I have to deal with my stage fright and my anxiety about people examining or judging it. The idea that people will pass judgment on it is not a useful thought.

I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about Black music, about soul music.

I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.

It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.