Some people are upset to see you doing ordinary things. Those people, if they were a celebrity, they would have an entourage.

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world.

I like to move around. I travel. I've driven across country by myself.

Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.

I see bodies as individual things.

I'm a painter first, and a musician second.

I wrote 'Big Yellow Taxi' on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart this blight on paradise. That's when I sat down and wrote the song.