To be an artist — actually, to be a human being in these times — it’s all difficult. … What matters is to know what you want and pursue it.

More than anything that's been the thread through my life - the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing.

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them.

I longed to read everything I possibly could, and the things I read in turn produced new yearnings.

I could have a job as a teacher because I like talking in front of people.

I want to keep my life as unfettered as possible. So maybe I'll just pretend to get rare books from my catalogue, and not really get them.

I always wrote like rock 'n' roll. And I always listen to rock 'n' roll as poetry.