I always want to try and see what the appeal is in anything. It's the healthiest and most honest approach.

Life is hard, you're tired, and there's disease. The strategy that works for children is to be delighted by the things that delight you.

You can get into anything if you are determined. I always thought that with music, too.

Anything that is within you is a gift. To be able to take possession of that and say, "Whatever it is, I am bigger than it," is to learn to cherish even the hard and painful things.

As important as politics are to me, the life and the spirit of people's emotions are much more important. People live real lives where they love and grieve and feel pain and joy and that is a whole separate sphere. All that political stuff, I believe in it strongly, but not as strongly as I believe that at some point you or someone is going to need a song to sit with and comfort them in a hard time.

I think listening to a lot of Lou Reed when I was a teenager is what encouraged me to just sing however felt good to me.

Young people like to feel self-righteous, like they're on the right side of things.