Music can make the cerebral accessible, the subconscious hummable. It communicates our shared needs and desires as sentient beings better than any other medium.

Less money for public media means less access to the arts.

I will say that art may well be the only thing that lasts, so I guess it's worth trying.

My mom. She really encouraged me. That's the trouble with education: Unless you have a really supportive parent, you get left behind.

In the hierarchy of instruments, if you're a harpist, you're considered someone with a brain much more than if you're a singer. Even though singers, particularly singers who can play piano... If you go to the office of career development, you can get a gig much easier. Still, musicians tend to look down on you. I think they've got some nerve, because if they could sing, they would do it, but most of them can't.

It was not very hard to do a double album. Nobody thinks it's a good idea if you're an unknown singer-songwriter. But I just kind of feel like if I want something, I can get it. That's the good side of being American, or something, you know?

I think people at most record labels really like music, but it's hard because everything is so subjective, and everyone's so creative in their own right.