I've been obsessed with stopping people from blowing each other's brains out since I was ten.

It sounds corny, but it's absolutely true: A song chooses me. I don't go looking for a certain kind of lyric. It kind of develops its own little arc and I'll just see what happens.

Peace might sell, but who's buying?

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.

I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being.

I was writing "Diamonds and Rust' and it had nothing to do with what it turned out to be. I don't remember what it is, but I think I was writing a song. It was literally interrupted by a phone call, and it just took another curve and it came out to be what it was.