The things you absorb you will ultimately secrete. It's all out there and available for you to enjoy...and be nourished by.

Any image I have, it's just what I do, but it comes off as being very pretentious. When you're a bit in the public astigmatism, anything you do seems like you did it so somebody would see you do it, like showing up at the right parties.

The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.

Most songs that aren't jump-rope songs, or lullabies, are cautionary tales or goodbye songs and road songs.

Oh, I got a beautiful 1959 Cadillac Coupe DeVille four-door. No one will ride in it with me.

I didn't really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was looking for my own voice, as a writer, y'know? And a world I could call my own.

In terms of black music - the only music that we can call our own, that was really born here - I don't think a lot has been done to chronicle the relations between American history and where black music fits in.