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

Woody Guthrie was what folks who don't believe in anything would call an anomaly.

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

I love theater. I go all the time. It's one of the reasons I moved to New York. But I understand that I have limited range as an actor. I can only play people who talk like me.

What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.

To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship.

Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political "Copperhead Road" is isn't listening very well.