For a long time I was trying to be poppier and younger. I didn't want to be on public radio or do any of that stuff for older people. Then I realized that that is exactly what I listen to.

I love the sad songs with their maudlin, self-deprecating, almost funny lyrics. As an Englishman, they make a lot of sense.

Most artists never get a chance to be Picasso, but that doesn't mean you would stop painting.

The state of radio is not great. It's like playing the lottery. The chances of hitting are mind boggling slim.

I come from a place where there's a lot of musical families.

I'm never worried about being upstaged. I love to have the best, most individual people come in and see if we hit on something.

I don't try to stop myself from becoming too personal. I just put it all out there. If anything, I try to remind myself to be as honest as possible all the time. Why hold back?

Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.

Everyone's different, but it was fun for me to work with Garth Hudson. He's from 'The Band.' They are a massive influence, that was a big thrill. He's completely out of his mind.

I do think it's probably true to a certain extent that you tend to sing music that fits your voice. If you're Lou Reed, you're unlikely to become a country singer.

Even for the people in the business who are real music lovers it's really about putting things in the right boxes, and my style doesn't fit into a box.

An avalanche doesn't look back at the damage it causes.

There's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigal who comes back to the dust at your feet having squandered a fortune far away.

No road is to long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it

I have no time for the endless nostalgia: 'Oh gosh I used to . . . ' Life is too short; I don't have any time for sitting and saying I miss things. What's the point? Go and do something else.'

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next.

It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.

It never hurts to have friends around, so that's why you'd form a crew.

Let us remember, so far as we can, that every unpleasant thought is a bad thing literally put into the body.

I don't regard the real and true and authentic as something to claim as a moral high ground.

We are not bearing our crosses every time we have a headache; an aspirin tablet will take care of that. What is meant is the trouble we would not have if we were not Christians.