Of course, I would be depressed sometimes, and my Mom would be worried about me because I would just sleep to escape. Cause I was so scared of being a musician or artist, or whatever you want to call it.

The flattery is nice, but awards don't add up to writing quality songs.

When I was 21, I got into a motorcycle accident while traveling in Europe and I had to lie around a lot in the aftermath, which was really the first time in my life that I became really focused and inspired to write.

Well, Winnepeg has everything to do with my music in the sense it was where I was born and raised, cultured and all that sort of thing. A lot of my experiences come from Winnepeg.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

I seem to have secured some place in world of music and that's kind of all that really matters to me.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

Making sleep happen is a must - anytime, anywhere, from a plane to a train to an automobile. Ideally, I like to get eight to ten hours a night, though I'll take it broken up in two segments if I have to.

If certain songs become popular enough to the point where I'll be playing them the rest of my life, I don't want them all to dwell on the same down moment that I'll have to keep reliving.

Of course, I would be depressed sometimes, and my Mom would be worried about me because I would just sleep to escape. Cause I was so scared of being a musician or artist, or whatever you want to call it.

Maybe in past years, perhaps women didn't feel quite as comfortable with revealing themselves, and their skills and their crafts... and now we are, so we're out there, just like the guys.

To be honest, I'm not as goal oriented and ambitious as I once was.

I listened to my record and hear lots of influences. And it's very rich... it's got a wide spectrum.

I've built a solid career there, but America's ten times the size. Now that we're onto the third record, I feel like the stars have aligned and American audiences are embracing my music even more.

I can't say I want to earn a particular award or sell a certain number of records, because even if I do that, the satisfaction only lasts five minutes.

Well, I actually first got into music as a small child, and as I became a teen, I sought out making money from music, weather that was singing lounge gigs, backup in studios, or weddings.

I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.

Once I got a record contract, and I took my songs which weren't quite finished, or maybe they were a good idea, maybe they weren't. I took them into the studio and developed them. They came to life and they evolved... and they're great.

Actually, no, because awards don't spark sales as much as you'd think.

Generally my feeling is that I think women are just in a universal way coming out, coming to their own more. And they have more opportunity, and basically we're equal.

I'm not writing just about melancholy stuff anymore, I made a point to cover a wide range of emotions.

And I think it's a real challenge to be up there sometimes with only a keyboard if they don't have a grand piano... and to try to win people over that way. It's really hard.

I'm learning a lot about myself being alone, and doing what I'm doing.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

I'm inspired by nature. Other artist's work is important for developing my perception.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, you have to get beyond that decorative facade.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

The most colorful section of a bookstore is the display of SF books, with art by people like Wayne Barlow, who is a terrific artist.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.

I've also been willing to share any help that I could give to any other artist.

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.

What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with his work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character is a child.

I left Jamaica for a while, because as an artist I need to experience different things, see the world, have different energies. Living in one place is not good for me.

A young and vital child knows no limit to his own will, and it is the only reality to him. It is not that he wants at the outset to fight other wills, but that they simply do not exist for him. Like the artist, he goes forth to the work of creation, gloriously alone.