He [Johnny Cash] was so fragile. We invaded Iraq in March, and he died in September. And because his health was so fragile, he couldn't take the controversy of making a public statement against the war. He knew that people were rabid. They attacked me mercilessly after I did the press conference with Musicians United to Win Without War. He knew that he couldn't tolerate that.

The new record started out being about loss, but it's morphed into being about how relationships go on even though one person is not in a body anymore.

If I ignore my work, I start having anxiety attacks.

I have a real worker-bee mentality. Just show up, just do it. Even if you feel like s--t and you think you're terrible and you'll never get better and it will never go anywhere, just show up and do it. And, eventually, something happens.

I have learned to be steady in my course of love, or fear, or loneliness, rather than impulsive in its wasting, either lyrically or emotionally.

Just a thank you is a mighty powerful prayer. Says it all.

My dad had more compassion than me. He was nonjudgmental. He didn't care where you stood politically. He just took you as a person on face value. He could love all stripes, and that's why all stripes claim him. He didn't judge.