Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there's his voice - an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.

I've never known of Wal-Mart to be a good neighbor in any town it's ever moved into.

What saves me from being a drug addict is sort of the opposite. It's me realizing that I don't really control anything.

I was comparatively late in understanding Bob Dylan's overwhelming importance as a songwriter. Everybody who does my job exists in the shadow of Bob Dylan. There are two categories: Dylan and everybody else. It's as simple as that. And it's going to be that way until he dies.

I still write more songs about girls than anything else.

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.