A song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate...Everything that happens to you influences your writing...The writing process for me is pretty much always the same-it's a solitary experience...I have yet to write that one song that defines my career...Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent.

I look at my hands and go, 'Hmm...what happened? Whose hands are those? Oh my God, they're mine'

Lie to me, I promise to believe. Lie to me, but please don't leave.

Your art kind of changes as you get older, by nature of the fact that you're hopefully gaining wisdom and you're starting to watch things with a better overview.

Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it's not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the '60s.

How the world perceives you is largely out of your control.

People go through challenging moments of losing people and of having their life threatened from illness and real grief. But they get through it. And that's the testament to the human spirit and it's -we are fragile, but we also are divine.