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" I think we're very much in a mystery here in this life and that artists try to pierce the mystery with their art. "

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" Music and books, I think, were the two things I trusted the most as a child - songs and books. "

" There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it. "

" A lot of songwriters have written about soldiers and war, but very few have written with them. "

" I think, because of the kind of writer I am, I can't do it halfway. I can't do it without dedicating my entire life to it. I have to give it a hundred percent. "

" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

" A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics. "

" When I became a songwriter, it was out of some sort of desperation. I needed to create something. I had to latch on to something, and the guitar was what I grabbed. "

" My experience is that the universal is the personal. If you can get past your navel-gazing into the deepest part of yourself as a writer, you find everyone - we're all there. "

" I guess I find it easier to talk when I have a guitar in front of me. "

" In a lot of ways, songwriting helped save my life. "

" I long for real and true connection. It has been the theme of all the songs in my whole life. "

" I think having near-death experiences, they sure made me free. "

" I think if people really listened to what our families who serve go through, we could have a realistic discussion of what it means to send young people to war. "

" Recovery stabilized me; songwriting gave me a purpose. "

" Once I got my life sorted and started to get healthy, then I was able to focus on writing. "

" What I was told is that I was born to a mother who was a Catholic, while her boyfriend was not. They couldn't get married unless they put me up for adoption. "

" When I first got sober, I hadn't read anything for six or seven years. I didn't have even that much focus. "

" Creating something beautiful out of pain helps ease the pain. So, that's kind of how I got to songwriting - quite honestly out of desperation. "

" I don't really write for catharsis; I get that kind of work done in therapy. "

" The world doesn't need any more pretty good songs. "

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" I'm openly gay, and I've got a major label record deal in Nashville, and it happened when I was 42 years old. It's not supposed to happen that way. "

" I did not know that the wounds of war are often invisible. "

" There's such a thing as a tribe - and family of choice. "

" Songs bring us into connection with each other. When they resonate, when we're in resonance, singing together, we become one for that 3 1/2 or four minutes the song lasts. It takes away that isolated loneliness that modern life is so full of. "

" War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing. "

" I knew I had that Cajun heritage, that Acadian heritage; I just feel it. And my gut says Irish on the other side. Irish and French, that's what I feel. When you're young, it doesn't matter so much, but as you get older, I would suspect part of the ageing process is to wonder about your ancestors - who were they? What were their lives like? "

" I've got lots of problems. Being gay isn't one of them. "

" I don't know who my dad is. "

" I try not to eat cakes, but sugar screams my name. "