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

All audiences should be slightly off balance.

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

Well, first of all it's entertainment. That stops us becoming too pretentious or thinking we're great artists.

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 glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.

If you're up there performing a song for the first time, it's as if you're hearing it through their ears. You become acutely self-conscious of the song in performance, so that's a good thing before recording. But I like to have some surprises for the audience; I don't want the audience to know everything that's going to be on the record, because these days, with the Internet, people become avid collectors of pre-knowledge.