I just had a child on purpose at age 56, I'm pretty f---ing optimistic.

When you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.

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.

Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion, too.

You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.

At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.

I don't get in vote in whether or how people remember me when I'm gone. It's really dangerous to sit around and worry about it too much, for me. It gets me way too in myself to worry about what people are going to think about me when I'm not around anymore.