We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.

It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.

What is there to be afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? I failed at a lot of things. My first record was horrible.

Grandma's on the front porch with a Bible in her hand, sometimes I hear her singing take me to the promised land.

It's what you do and not what you say. If you're not part of the future, then get out of the way!

Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth.

Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

Ain't that America, home of the free? Little pink houses for you and me.

Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

When you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. When you have the law on your side, argue the law. When you have neither, holler.

Beware the short terminal guy with nothing to lose.

As I was telling my husb — As I was telling President Bush.

The future may require not so much having a new idea as stopping having an old idea.

Sometimes you just have to go and make a mess of things to get people to pay attention.

Nobody's going to elect me president of the United States.

If everything you do works, then you're not taking many risks and probably aren't innovating either.

Any time is a good time to start a company.

Looking at the creative process is like looking into a crystal: no matter which facet we gaze into, we see all the others reflected.