Music and books, I think, were the two things I trusted the most as a child - songs and books.

I long for real and true connection. It has been the theme of all the songs in my whole life.

Songs are here to help us: they build bridges from heart to heart.

I felt my whole life like I didn't have a family, and I needed one. So I had to build one, and you build one with faith, hope, and the healing power of love - or you end up the 'Unabomber.' That's the choice.

I think having near-death experiences, they sure made me free.

I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song.

A lot of times, a bunch of songs have to be written to get to the next really good one.

I don't play everything I write. I mean, everything I write is not that good. I bring out into the world the ones I think that are really worthy of an audience's attention.

I don't have the experience of being in a war.

Soldiers are trained not to be vulnerable, but when they come home, they've got to learn it.

There's such a thing as a tribe - and family of choice.

I don't know who my dad is.

I'm from New Orleans, and I have a French last name - although I have no real relationship with my last name because it's not my name. I don't know my name.

What I'm finding is there's an awful lot about adoption and relinquishment and the complicated nature of family that we, as human beings, haven't been able to have a real discussion about yet without a lot of censorship.

What I've found at 48 years old is that there's nothing about me that's unique.

I'm grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace.

Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen.

Recovery stabilized me; songwriting gave me a purpose.

In a lot of ways, songwriting helped save my life.

I've always been drawn to the hard story, the trauma, because I think art can turn it around.

I'm an old-fashioned folk singer. I stand in front of an audience with a guitar and a barstool.

I was in the orphanage in New Orleans until I was almost a year old. I don't think I ever got held by my mama, so that was completely and utterly traumatic. I think it was trauma from the first breath, and I think I've spent my whole life trying to heal from that trauma. So it shaped my brain.

If I start tracing, I bet I will find a writer in my family tree.

What I was told is that I was born to a mother who was a Catholic, while her boyfriend was not. They couldn't get married unless they put me up for adoption.