The reason music became so powerful to our generation is that it's art you can consume in your car, and we were driving around a lot.

My son was diagnosed with autism. He's OK, he makes eye contact, but he doesn't talk. He needs eight hours a day of very intensive school, and you wouldn't even believe me if I told you how much it costs.

I have no doubt in mind that I justify the space I take up in the world.

I'm from Texas. I hitchhiked to Tennessee when I was 19 years old, and it is really beautiful in Tennessee.

I don't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, trying to compare how many records I've sold or how much money I've made.

I don't care what's happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven't in a long time.

You make decisions, and that's what separates art from some other pop music. It doesn't mean that you can't make an embarrassing amount of money, for a borderline Marxist, doing something that you love, but it does mean that this huge pool of money that was out there when I started making records in the '80s is gone.