The real meaning of courage was the personal sacrifice of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.

To live you have to experiment, to have the ability to experiment you have to have confidence, to have confidence you have to be loved, to be loved you have to love.

Now any person who plays an acoustic guitar standing up on stage with a microphone is a folk singer. Some grandmother with a baby in her arms singing a 500-year-old song, well, she's not a folk singer, she's not on stage with a guitar and a microphone. No, she's just an old grandmother singing an old song. The term "folk singer" has gotten warped.

When I am chopping trees out in the woods because I heat my house with wood, I feel myself right in the middle of God. Mahalia Jackson said "I have seen God. I have seen the sun rise." So, in a sense, when anyone looks in the mirror, they look at an infinitesimally small part of God.

I never intended to make a living from music. That's the funny thing. I wanted to be a journalist.

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.