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" So much has happened to obscure the dialogue about race and about gender and discrimination in general, especially where those things touch on economics. "

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" Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms. "

" When you feel like you've had a good show, you go backstage and you talk to yourself about it, and if you have a bad show you talk to yourself about it. "

" I think religion played a huge part in Bush's re-election. "

" My first record was almost not my first record. "

" Songwriting is a very mysterious process. It feels like creating something from nothing. It's something I don't feel like I really control. "

" I often write either really early in the morning, or really late at night. "

" That's one of the things I like about San Francisco. It's not like anywhere else in the world. "

" Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs. "

" One of the reasons I chose Tufts is that they have one of the best veterinary schools in the country. Since I was six years old, I wanted to be a veterinarian. "

" I meet people in my daily life, people who seem to experience some change and some growth on a personal level, and that gives me hope. "

" The way popular music is categorized and formatted cuts down on everyone's options. And although people don't talk about it, there are a lot of issues of race determining musical categories of what's rock, R&B, or even folk. It ends up restricting creativity. "

" There's a time and place for everything, and my focus is music. So that's what I prefer to spend most of my time doing, and not talk about making music. "

" You have to pay attention to the moment and make it the best it can be for you. I've been trying to do that. It's really made a major difference for me. I'm a happier person. "

" I end up writing about all kinds of things. I never make an attempt to write about anything in particular. I don't have a little list of topics to write about. "

" There are some concerns that are universal. Everyone wants to be loved, and everyone wants to feel like they belong somewhere in the world. Everyone wants to do something and feel like they have a sense of purpose. These are just the things that I think about and the things that make their way into my songwriting. "

" I picked up the guitar at 11, but even before then, I was writing songs on the organ. "

" With other people, you're always swapping music. Somebody is always listening to something you've never heard. It's a great way to hear all sorts of new things. "

" When we started making 'Where You Live', I bought a bunch of Polaroid cameras in so that people could record the experience. Some of those pictures are in the CD sleeve. "

" It's fun playing small venues. "

" It all comes together. It's - that's the way it's always worked for me with songwriting. "

" We do need to think about how we have security - everyone has a right to that - but we also need to think about how we maintain civil rights and personal freedom. "

" I think of the audience the way I would think of another person: You meet someone, then you take it from there; you see what's interesting to both of you. "

" As I started to consider a career in music, I hoped for success, truthfully. I didn't imagine anything that would amass the level of the first record, but I hoped that I would be able to sustain a career. "

" I mentioned that I received a scholarship to Episcopalian school, and the model for the school was 'From each according to his or her ability and to each according to his or her need.' And it's something that is still really important to me in thinking about how I prioritize what I do with my life. "

" I learn all these things about the record talking about it after it's finished. "

" I'm a hopeful cynic. "

" I'm not sure about anything as far as religion and spirituality go. "

" I could make records at home in a vacuum, but that is not the situation. I'm just taking it one phase at a time. "

" That's what everyone should do with their lives: stand up for what they believe in or try to do some good in the world. I don't think artists have a greater responsibility than anyone else. "

" Honestly, I think, as an artist, it's everything that's in your life that informs what you do. So, obviously, growing up in Cleveland has played a big role in how I see the world. "