Fame, on its best day, is kind of like a friendly wave from a stranger by the side of the road. And when it’s not so good, it’s like a long walk home, all alone, with nobody in when you get there.

People deserve better. They deserve truth. They deserve honesty. The best music... is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

I’m a romantic. To me, the idea of a romantic is someone who sees the reality, lives the reality every day, but knows about the possibilities, too. You can’t lose sight of the dreams.

I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality. ~ USA Today, 2/28/08

There comes a point where the song becomes more and more like a movie. And when that happens you cease to become its creator and assume the role of director. For you have to be so many different characters and it's better to let them have their lives of their own.

Success makes life easier. It doesn’t make living easier.

We've worked hard for my music, to play a very central and, hopefully, purposeful place in my audience's life.

The proof is in the music. You gotta feel a deep commonality with whoever or whatever you're writing about, or the song won't be any good. And that's where the song's integrity comes from and that's where its believability and... truth come from.

For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire. ~ R&R Hall of Fame, March 2005

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