I have hope in people, in individuals. Because you don't know what's going to rise from the ruins.

The white music was melodic and pretty, and you had beautiful women's voices like Gogi Grant and even the Andrews Sisters. Then I went directly to rhythm and blues, which had beautiful voices but not much melody in particular and pretty much the same chord pattern. I loved it, I was entrenched in it, but then folk music came in the middle of that for me, and made its own path. And it was part of the rebellion against bubblegum music, or music that is pretty but doesn't say anything.

During the 'ballad' years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.

Some people don't even notice. "Oh, you sound exactly like you did!" And I say, "OK, if that's what you want to believe, that's fine."

If you're gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.

I wish it was clear for me how it happened [stop writing songs], then maybe I could start writing again. But it's kind of an "it." It just submerged itself. Because the way I had always written was just that it came out. It just happened.