American folk songs were about tragedy, right? They were about suffering and tragedy, and a lot of my songs are about that, even though they were misunderstood.

It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.

I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off.

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.

Regret should be handled swiftly, and you shouldn't hold onto it. People spend their entire lives regretting what they didn't do and what they should've done. Hey, man, you did what you did.

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.

Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing.

I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four.

I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain?

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

I've been around so many people for so long that I take great delight in my own company.

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing.

I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.

I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles.

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.

People have the right to say what they want to.

This is about black people selling out other black people.

This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.

What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.

We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at.

I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him.

As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine.

It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems.

I'm as left-wing as you can get.

My best songs come from a place outside myself.

I believe in something, even if it's just me.