“I don't feel like songs should be hoarded. I don't feel like one's tainted if somebody else does it. That's the mark of artistry - take a song that's maybe even a really popular song and do it your...”

“It's man's work. My dad was gone at 4:30 in the morning and home at 8 at night, and he worked underground, and the last mine he worked in was 26 inches high in a lot of places. He liked the enginee...”

“Anytime that another artist or a critic that is well-respected says something nice about you, you're always thankful and hope that you can live up to that.”

“I always tell people, 'The music's free. I get paid to travel.'”

“It's such a strange marriage, a song and someone that sings it. When that works, it really works, and when it doesn't, it doesn't.”

“Whether you like modern incarnations of what country radio hits are, or you like what I'm doing, or you like something really off in folk, poetry Americana land, it's all just music, man. If you li...”

“If I paint a wild horse, you might not see the horse... but surely you will see the wildness!”

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

“The best incentive for an artist are the harshest criticism”

“I have no idea how to be an artist and a lover, so I chose the one most likely to make me happy when I'm eighty and gazing back on a long and productive life.”

“Artists strive to free this true and spontaneous self in their work. Creativity, meditation are ways of freeing an inner voice.”