When I performed the songs in front of an audience at the end of each project and I knew the storytellers were in the crowd listening, that was hard.

I make a living from storytelling - if you're a public person and you sing songs about getting married to get a visa, and you are actually doing that, you're gonna end up in trouble.

I would cut off my right arm to be someone's lover.

What's broken can always be fixed What's fixed will always be broken

You don't get over a broken heart/ You just learn to carry it gracefully.

I would never kiss anyone/ Who doesn't burn me like the sun.

I had a period in my life when I was eight or nine when I was so scared of dying that I wouldn't go out of our house for a whole year.

I really think I need to find a home. I don't know if that includes a girlfriend or not, but first I need to find a home, definitely.

I hate when songwriters refer to their songs as babies.

I must admit that it seems like my mind really reconstructs some things, and in a very - I just know that it seems like some things are not as I remembered them when I do some investigation.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

God is the name we give to the science we don't understand. Science is the name we give to the God we don't understand.

God is my helper.

I bet there are a lot of women out there who want to sleep with a guy who reads. And being the head of the reading foundation, I’m very well endowed.

The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.

I have known some quite good people who were unhappy, but never an interested person who was unhappy.

I always save a few special outfits for the final rounds of a tournament, because they put me in a more positive mindset and I then make better decisions.

I don't think that my twenties were any more dramatic than those of most people I know. I was never that bad and I never became that good.

You have to treat people the way you want to be treated, because ultimately, you're not gonna get anywhere if you're just mean to people.