The money when you're having a hit is great, but money can be taken from you. What can't be taken from you is the talent and the effect your work has.

I write a lot from instinct. But as you're writing out of instinct, once you reach a certain level as a songwriter, the craft is always there talking to you in the back of your head...that tells you when it's time to go to the chorus, when it's time to rhyme. Real basic craft... it's second nature.

Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.

I was interviewed for a Grammy television show, and they asked me about Nashville, and I talked for three minutes and when I finished, I was teared up. The whole room was crying. Nashville has given me a home, where I never had a home before.

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.

Libraries are a hallmark of a civilized culture, and librarians represent that culture to all facets of society.

Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.