We all go to different churches or no churches, we have different favorite foods, different ways of making love, different ways of doing all sorts of things, but there we're all singing together. Gives you hope.

A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after.

Do-so is more important than say-so.

I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear.

But if two and two and fifty make a million...

I write a song because I want to. I think the moment you start writing it to make money, you're starting to kill yourself artistically.