No, my step-daughter just opened a theatre school for children, I have another daughter who works in the record industry and another who is going back to collage and I have two little ones at home.

War is idiocy. We live on a small, small planet, and what we do to others is what we do to ourselves.

I do not believe in terrorism, violence, destruction, murder, pre-emption, or War.

I choose not to give energy to the emotions of revenge, hatred or the desire to subjugate.

I am so sick of reading about another car bomb, another suicide bomber, another 10, 20, 30, 70, 100 people dead in a day, both Americans and Iraqis.

Every person's every action has an effect.

Just a thank you is a mighty powerful prayer. Says it all.

I was angry at my parents when I had to have brain surgery, that they weren't still around, because no matter how old you are you want you parents when you're going through something like that.

Reading inspirational and motivational quotes daily is like taking my vitamins.

More and more, I see myself as a folk musician, and someone who values context.

I think books find their way to you when you need them. Whenever I feel like I'm not going to live to read all the books I want to read, I remind myself that the important ones find their way to me.

Self-expression without craft is for toddlers.

Being in Vietnam changed him [Johnny Cash] fundamentally. He was devastated when we went into Iraq.

The ephemeral nature of live performance is the part I love most - it's a monk's sand painting, carefully constructed, then wiped away in an instant.

Documenting one's life in the midst of living it is a strange pursuit.

I spent nearly two hours deciding on an outfit that would look as if the subject of clothing had never crossed my mind, but would in fact show off my best features and miraculously hide the extra pounds.

Isn't that the goal, as you grow older? That you start reclaiming those parts of yourself you didn't recognize or didn't think were there all along? That's what happened when I made The River and the Thread record.

With time the unbearable becomes shocking, becomes sad, and finally becomes poignant.

I dream of songs. I dream they fall down through the centuries, from my distant ancestors, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats.

As I started writing about loss and grief, I was taking what felt unmanageable and using my songwriting, my sense of poetry and discipline, to try and make it manageable.

Southern gentility is evocative to me.

Work ... is redemption.

It was never too late to undo who you had become.

If you're playing in a tradition and you have no reference point to it, no understanding and have not studied it, I can't respect that.