I write songs from the point of view I had at a time;I'm not tryingto write songs from a young person's point of view.That only ends in disaster.

My music has to do with beauty, and it's intended to, if not lift the spirits, then be a kind of a balm to the spirits.

A is for Answering all your prayers, N is for kNowing that your loverman's going to be the answer.

The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.

I think there is a certain perversity in my music in that I continue, you know, to eat at the same ball of vomit year after year.

I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.