Musician

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.

Truman Capote is really an interesting cat.

I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect.

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

At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.

Making art in America is sort of a political statement in and of itself. It's not the best environment for that sometimes.

I don't care what's happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven't in a long time.

Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.

I think it's obvious that democracy is something that is contagious, and it always has been.

You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.

You can listen to carpenters talk for hours in Ireland. The people have a relationship to words that I don't think you will run into anyplace in the world.

They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable. The truth is, you can not pay your taxes. I've done it, and there's consequences, but it can be done. Death you're not going to get out of, and you kind of got to deal with it.

Me, I'm spiritually retarded, I need to be knee deep in water with a fly rod in my hands, that's about as close to God as I get.

I love 'Harry Potter.' I love those books. That started because I lived with a woman who had kids who were, like, 10 and 7 when they moved in with me.

My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.

Having a child at 55... that's optimism.

I promise you that I did not become an addict because of anything to do with the behavior of either of my parents. Everybody has to make their own choices.

I still write more songs about girls than anything else.

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.

If I can get Me out of the way, I can do anything.