I feel like I owe my audience something. They feed my kids. And I really like my job, a lot.

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.

I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

I have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me.

Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

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

Every day on Earth is another chance to get it right.

I don't really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.

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

Isn’t reality based on the prevailing culture, the trend that people want to identify with?

we've learned an interesting rule about fame. Those who seem desperate for it are the people that others least want to see.

Hee hee hee! You should've seen the look on your face!" "If mom and dad cared about me at all, they'd buy me some infra-red nighttime vision goggles.

True individuality is the repose arising from the relation of a self to all it has to do with. Bad individuality has in it a separation between outward action and a flat repose inwardly.

You are asleep and have forgetten that you are dreaming. You mistakenly believe you are awake.

The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.

But as Shakespeare’s Richard II boasts, ‘Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

It is notorious that the desire to live increases as life itself shortens.

... danger was always at its most lethal when disguised as respectability.

The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam (is) also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force.