"Country" has become a marketing term. I see myself as a songwriter.

I choose not to give energy to the emotions of revenge, hatred or the desire to subjugate.

Work ... is redemption.

Sometimes the fragment of a conversation, the color of the sky, the image in a dream, has everything to do with where the song begins.

Being in Vietnam changed him [Johnny Cash] fundamentally. He was devastated when we went into Iraq.

The ephemeral nature of live performance is the part I love most - it's a monk's sand painting, carefully constructed, then wiped away in an instant.

Once your kids get older and get out of the house, it's not like it stops. They're on the phone with me every day; I'm intimately involved in their problems.