I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.

I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing.

To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm

What I wanted to hear didn't exist, so it was necessary for me to go out and create it.

An audience will let you know if a song communicates. If you see them kind of falling asleep during the song, or if they clap at the end of a song, then they're telling you something about the song. But you can have a good song that doesn't communicate. Perhaps that isn't a song that you can sing to people; perhaps that's a song that you sing to yourself. And some songs are maybe for a small audience, and some songs are for a wide audience. But the audience will let you know pretty quickly.

People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences.

I'm sure every pattern has been covered, but it's nice to think you might dwell on some that other people don't.