All I've got to do today is smile.

Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.

To get the stuff out of you, especially if what you're dealing with is yourself, requires you to open up and touch tender spots. You have to be anesthetized a little bit.

Someone could walk into this room and say your life is on fire.

Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

I'm always going forward toward something, and that something is usually an album, because I like to record. I probably like to record more than I like to write.