I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.

I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought.

The best thing you can learn from the worst times of your life is that it always gets better. It may take a month, a year, a decade, but it will get better if you leave yourself open to it.

At the end of the day, if you don't have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You're still an artist. That's something no one can take away.

I feel I was born with the music coming to me, and that's not something to be wasted.

Artists are taught to be humble about their impact, especially in folk music. It's so ingrained that I have a hard time even thinking I had any impact other than what a normal hit song would have.

That's an amazing moment, the first time you hear yourself on radio. It's still thrilling.