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.

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.

Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.

I was born on this mountain, this mountains my home, she holds me and keeps me from worry and woe.

I'm supposed to make people cry, but not by manipulating.

Me, I'm spiritually retarded, I need to be knee deep in water with a fly rod in my hands, that's about as close to God as I get.

I have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me.