People can try to make me into anything they want, but I think they're really throwing around language but saying the same thing.

I can deal with conservatives in a democracy. With real conservatives, I don't agree with them, but I understand why they believe what they believe and I believe they're being honest with me about it.

Part of it is, I think, just to let people know you've got a record out there and that you're still alive requires more work than it used to, because the traditional radio, bug chains of record stores, all of that, that doesn't exist anymore.

Or you can be like the Soviet Union, start out with ideals, and end up ceasing to exist.

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

I still write more songs about girls than anything else.

The creative core of New York has never been native New Yorkers; it's people from all over the world.