This is an election year, and I think we're in desperate trouble and it's time for people to speak up and not pipe down. It's a real conflict for me when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment. I'd rather not know.

The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.

There are a lot of aspiring singers who are not paid attention to because they don't look like a fashion model.

The government has to spend money during a recession, because their spending is our earning.

When you sing the same song over and over and over again, it stops meaning what it originally meant to you. It starts sounding like white noise, or my washing machine.

People have often written about me, that I did this for this reason and that for that reason, and theyre usually 98 percent wrong.

My feeling about school was that it interfered with my reading.