“A baseball team is like a band. Because, conceptually, there are no heroes in baseball - there's just the team.”

“A lot of people don't know what it's like to actually be hungry. I do. I've also slept on the streets.”

“Even if I'm writing music, it's with a lyric in mind, to communicate some kind of feeling.”

“Folk art has never been much about politics; it's about action and utility.”

“I don't care much about politics. That kind of witchcraft I stay away from because people end up dead. I'd rather die for music.”

“I don't need to control anything. Even with romantic partnerships, I don't need to control anyone.”

“I don't think I'm a particularly somber human being.”

“I don't think music is my job - I don't think about it that way, because I don't really get paid. There's no paycheck at the end; it's more of a 'whatever is left over' kind of situation.”

“I grew up in the suburbs and was raised on rap radio, so it took me a long time to stumble upon the acoustic guitar as a resource for anything.”

“I just write songs whenever I feel like it, whenever they come to me.”

“I love songs because by nature they are concise; they sum up. I try to use as few words as possible. It's usually funnier that way, anyway.”

“I think I have some very meaningful relationships with people; we all do. At the same time, I recognize that everyone is following their own heart; there's been people who have left my life, and I don't have a problem with that. This is a transitory world; we're all spirits just looking for love and finding it and holding on.”

“I was just a folk singer. I cut my teeth on the streets, you know.”

“I wouldn't go into the studio if I didn't have a band who's ready, willing, and able.”

“I write for myself, and I write for my friends and people who I have a connection with. I try to give some dignity to peoples' lifestyles that tend to be ignored.”

“I'm making music with my friends. It's fun. It should be fun. You shouldn't make music if it isn't fun.”

“It's hard to make out the difference between insults and bad advice.”

“I've always littered my songs with jokes. You might need to dig a little deeper to find the humor, but I would totally object to being some kind of distraught personality. I've never tried to attach myself to that.”

“I've always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words. I don't think I'm even a musician. I don't play a lot of instruments, not really a soloist or anything.”

“Lyrics are my racket; music is play - the fluff stuff.”

“Music is the marriage of the feelings of the living to the wisdom of the dead.”

“Opinions only carry weight in the second or third person.”

“People expect not just songwriters but all personalities to pontificate about their egos - they just wanna see someone talking about themselves constantly. I'm not interested in that.”

“Sometimes I feel like I finish a song, and there's another song that I have to write in response to that song. Each is like its own separate feeling, its own separate universe.”

“Thank God we don't know a lot about Shakespeare or Moses or Homer or Lautreamont. These are the best guys we got, and their art is powerful because they're mysterious.”

“When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes. It comes down to people's personalities and individual energies.”