The roughest road often leads to the top.

So, where's the Cannes Film Festival being held this year?

I'm a bit of a night owl because that's when I feel the most creative and alive.

I'm not really religious but very spiritual. I give money to this company that manufactures hearing aids on a regular basis. More people should really hear me sing. I have a gift from God.

We take food for granted, but it isn't a luxury for many people.

It's been quite a roller coaster ride, but I've grown and learned a lot about myself. The greatest thing is being able to interact with fans and touch people's lives... for that I give thanks.

I was raised fundamentalist Christian, and now I'm not that. It was not an act of rebellion or anything. For me, it was about being in a line of work where I was meeting so many different people and feeling like they all had legitimate points of view that I needed to consider and occasionally these were at odds with ideas that I was raised with.

Growing up in a bluegrass or acoustic-oriented world, the musicians become so focused on performance, as far as playing. We tend to overanalyze the notes, so you're always trying to sharpen everything up.

For me, music always leads. Lyrics are only about how they sing. It is wonderful if they read well, too. In the very best scenario, sometimes a lyric will pop out with a melody, simultaneously. That's a lovely thing, but you can't rely on that.

You go to the Grammys and you say, 'I don't care if I win or not,' and of course you care.

I love music with everything I have, and when I am in a front of a classroom talking about music sometimes someone will ask me a question and it reminds me to really think about something, to really feel something.

I'm slow by nature; even if I write something fast, I'll let it sit for a month and hem and haw over it.

Music should never be a dictatorship. It should be a symbiotic relationship between the musician and the audience.

Everything in our lives is encouraging us to turn inward with all the technology that we have available to us.

The name 'Clara' is significant in my life. When I was an adolescent and started thinking about my place in the world as an adult and growing up, I knew I would have an eventually new outlook on things and eventually meet someone and have a kid. In my mind, I was like, 'If I have a daughter, I want to name her Clara.'

My favorite bar in New York City is called Milk and Honey, a great cocktail bar.

I think what people call genre is just a question of orchestration. So, for instance, with Punch Brothers, you look at that band and say that's a bluegrass band, when really it's an orchestration choice.

Great music is the only genre that actually matters, and the members of that club are far more similar to each other than they are to any genre they might be commonly associated with.

Improvisation is an important part of bluegrass, and I would hasten to add that classical music wasn't always such an improvisational void. Back in the day, everyone's cadenzas were improvised, and improvisation was taught in conservatories.

My grandmother got me recordings of the 'Goldberg Variations,' in addition to the 'Brandenburg Concertos,' the Mozart string quartets and Beethoven's 'Seventh Symphony.'

I was introduced to classical music by my grandparents - my parents were mostly into folk and jazz. Even as a young man, I was literally unaware of the distinctions between any of that, and I still think it's pointless.

For years, my actual listening activity has been governed by what I perceived to be good for me as a musician, almost like the way an athlete trains for a given sporting task. I'd listen to something if I felt it would improve my sense of harmony or counterpoint, or whatever I was working on.

I obviously love music very, very much.

I would love to be one of those fellows who combine formal and folk music approaches.