There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.

I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.

I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.

My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.

Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.

All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.

I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.

I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.

I use health joy and comfort to set off my brain chemicals of bliss for my highest good.

And round about there is a rabbleOf the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.They shall inherit the earth.

We live not by the money we possess but by the goodness of the Creator.

I had a sense of who I was before I got famous.

If you don't get out of the box you've been raised in, you won't understand how much bigger the world is.

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

The duty of the individual farmer, at this time, is to increase his production, particularly of food crops.

The only way to find the best actor would be to let everybody play Hamlet and let the best man win.

Old men grasp more at life than babies, and leave it with a much worse grace than young people. It is because all their labours having been for this life, they perceive at last their trouble lost.

As for myself, the wonderful sea charmed me from the first.