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" We all must live our lives always feeling, always thinking the moment has arrived. "

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" After it's finished, sometimes I can trace a path that goes back to the possible source of inspiration. "

" As you might imagine, I'm approached by lots of organizations and lots of people who want me to support their various charitable efforts in some way. And I look at those requests, and I basically try to do what I can. "

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

" I found myself in the middle of a race riot when I was about 14 years old, and I found someone pointing a gun at me and telling me to run or they'd shoot me. "

" I'm a hopeful cynic. "

" I grew up with music in the house. I was told I could sing as soon as I started talking. Everybody in my family sang, always lots of records, blues and jazz and soul, R&B, you know, like Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Coltrane, that kind of thing. "

" 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 won't get into it any more than to say that there are parts of me in all the songs that I write. "

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

" 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. "

" There have been some gains made in terms of more equality for women in the workplace and in the way the legal system deals with issues of violence against women. "

" The songs are not necessarily autobiographical. A lot of songs are a combination of influences. It might be some part of my life, or something I've felt, or something somebody's told me. It all comes together. "

" Maybe it's naive to say, but it almost seems like, in the past, people tried to sell you something you would actually need, like a hammer or a broom or a toothbrush. But now there's this notion that they can sell you anything. And all they have to do is convince you that you need it. "

" At this point in my life I'd like to live as if only love mattered. "

" There are good reasons for being in jail - for protesting. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" As a child I always had a sense of social conditions and political situations. I think it had to do with the fact that my mother was always discussing things with my sister and me - also because I read a lot. "

" You need to keep something for yourself. As a writer, I feel that even more strongly. I feel like I need to be able to freely observe the world. That's the way I like to move through the world; I don't need to be the focus of attention. If I am, it impairs my ability to write and to do what I do. "

" Some things remain fragments, just the lyrics and melodies or a line or two or a verse. "

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

" I can't think of anything worse, really, than to try to live up to someone else's expectations of what you should be. You don't make art by consensus. "

" 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. "

" Music was never just a hobby for me. I'd pick up a guitar every day to work on whatever I was writing at the time. I would put my ideas in songs the way some people might put them in diaries or journals. "

" Growing up in Cleveland, I learned about singing from my mother, who had once sung professionally and who admired Mahalia Jackson and Aretha Franklin. "

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

" 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. "

" I always considered trying to make a living playing music. But it was always really clear to me, at the various stages in my life, that it really wasn't a possibility unless some phenomenal thing happened. "