You should put time into learning your craft. It seems like people want success so quickly, way before they're ready.

I'm fascinated by the whole concept of snake handling. When you read about the Pentecostal snake handlers, what strikes you the most is their commitment.

I think in the world of rock music or whatever it's called - anything outside of Nashville - there's a lot more freedom within that industry to do whatever you want to do.

Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.

I grew up around poets and novelists and my dad wrote poems about everything - from a cat sleeping in a window to a car wreck he passed on the highway. I learned not to censor myself: that was one of things I learned in my apprenticeship, my creative-writing apprenticeship with my dad.

The old jazz singers or old blues singers, you always just saw them kind of sitting down and singing. They weren't worried as much about their voice sounding perfect. They would make the song kind of fit their voice.

Just because I'm talking about something that might have been a sad or painful situation doesn't mean that I'm sad or tortured 24 hours a day any more than anybody else is.