I was sensitive to music and poetry, and it was around me growing up.

I'm not the type to turn to drugs and alcohol, but I do have a profound devotion to art and music - and children.

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.

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.

I wanted to be the writer in the room setting depth charges of feeling out the world with my language.You know, I had a very romantic idea about that.But I grew into being a performer.

As John Adams said, all democracies will eventually self-destruct. We seem to be doing it very quickly.

I was a songwriter; that was the torch I carried. This is an honorable profession. This is what I do.