If I pick up a fiddle, I don't compose on it, so much as I just play whatever.

I like to carry around extremely pretentious books, and I don't know if I can read them, but if I hold them near me, it imbues me with a sense of powerful intelligence.

I was listening to this record by Paul Desmond called First Place Again. It's incredibly gorgeous. There is nothing better that you would want to get from music than you get from that record.

I am a complete jazz nerd.

When I do older folk songs, I'm not doing them because they're old. I have no interest in reviving or continuing a tradition. I'm just doing them because they're great songs.

Guitar comes more out of its limitations for me, like putting it in a weird tuning and then just go places.

I'm not really a folk singer, but I love the music and there's certain lines that will get just stuck in my head, and they seem to be stuck there for a reason, and I start singing them.

Reading books is fantastic. I didn't do it until ten years ago. It's great.

What happens when a leader misses his steps on the ladder is what happens when a train misses the rail. Be on track.

We make a great bad guy, and they all say they hate us. But at the end of every day, people want to trust us. Because we're their government. And people trust their government.

This is your story and you get to decide how it's written.

A scientist is an unlikely character to put at the center of a movie.

I've been married for 46 years, and I live in a nice house, my grass is always cut, I pay my bills, and my cat loves me!

To me, there's two kinds of music these days. There's ephemeral music, and there's music that has lasting power and depth.

When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them.

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none.

It is so pleasant to learn about new things. Every day I find how little I know, but I do not feel discouraged since God has given me an eternity in which to learn more.

Keeping animals, I have learned, is all about water. Who even knew chickens drank water? I didn't, but they do, and a lot.