I don't really need to appeal to some stockbroker, and I always sort of root for the underdog. I probably consider all that when I'm writing, but it's not in the forefront of my brain.

I don't think anyone wants to do the same thing over and over again.

My songs, well, they are sad, but in all of them the person singing them - me or whoever - is actually still trying and hasn't given up yet.

I think one of the best things you can do is write really sad songs that touch some semblance of... I guess 'hope' is the right word?

I think you just have to have some rapport with the song.

As a producer you can be more objective about the songs because you didn't write them.

It's hard to write any good song. It seems more rewarding, or maybe just easier, to write sad ones.

I don't like to think about stuff that's boring.

In music, you learn a lot of things when you don't know what you're doing.

Every perfect gift comes from the great God.

If a guy can't even handle my words, I don't think he can handle me as a person.

At home they thought of white people as a vague but powerful entity--like the forces that control the weather, that capable of destruction, that hidden from view.

The warrior acts, the fool reacts.

There's a part of every living thing that wants to become itself: the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one.That is spirituality.

I have to take what I say and make it heavy, so every single bar means something. And there's no riddles in my rhymes. Every single word means something.

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

I don't think I'm going to get so mature that I lose touch with the whatever wounded part of myself that feels the need to be funny. I'm already old enough that I realize that's not going to happen.

Never make a fuss-it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.

You have to be an extremely good reader to appreciate what a good writer is. There are some people who are completely insensitive to good writing.