I was not naturally talented. I didn't sing, dance or act, though working around that minor detail made me inventive.

The banjo is such a happy instrument--you can't play a sad song on the banjo - it always comes out so cheerful.

If you've got a dollar and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've got 71 cents left; But if you've got seventeen grand and you spend 29 cents on a loaf of bread, you've still got seventeen grand. There's a math lesson for you.

I don't think anyone is ever writing so that you can throw it away. You're always writing it to be something. Later, you decide whether it'll ever see the light of day. But at the moment of its writing, it's always meant to be something. So, to me, there's no practicing; there's only editing and publishing or not publishing.

When I die, now don't think that I'm a nut, don't want no fancy funeral, just one like old King Tut.

If I screw up raising my kids, nothing I achieve will matter much.

When you're touring and if you go to a party, there's automatically a celebrity-audience distance. It follows you around, especially when you're on the road in small towns. Any time there is awe, it gets very difficult to be normal, to be yourself. But I'm not saying that that's what made me the way I am. I've probably always been distant.