It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

There's been a big buzz about the Charlatans in the last couple of years. I've heard the word Charlatans more in the last few years than I'd heard it for the previous 20 years. People would interview me for years and never even mention the Charlatans.

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

I don't think I'd want a revival. I'm not doing a tribute to myself.

I haven't been drinking for years now. Something's got to give. I don't mind that I'm a guy that's stopped drinking, though this interview is making me mighty thirsty.

About 10 years ago, I took some vocal lessons. I'll bet that helped. I got a tape of exercises that the girl gave me, which I don't do anymore, but they were good. And I don't smoke.

And it really is a good feeling to get up there and make that sound. I'm not stuck in a time warp, because I can use as many of the old songs as I want to, just the favorites.

I was always looking to record, but how much I actually pursued it was another thing. The major labels weren't that interested in me, and the smaller labels didn't have any money to do anything.

My stuff was more of a folk coffeehouse thing, with more acoustic guitar, just me doing a single, and then adding on instruments and voices, with emphasis on lyrics and singing and light kind of acoustic jazz.

I guess my idea of a good audience is one that's quiet and listens, but also that's alive: they respond, they're getting the jokes, they're with me. And that' s been happening.

I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.

There's some pictures of me playing hollow bodies, but I never last long. I always come back to the acoustic.

I don't dictate the solos and I don't dictate the vocal harmonies.

Right now, I'm thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.

There've been periods where I had to convince the audience or win them over.

I come from a family of all women and one boy, my brother. We're all women and we're all precocious and opinionated and like to have fun and we always had friends in the house and we were always, like, half-naked.

We have come to expect campaigns to be mean and stupid and politicians to be unresponsive, self-seeking and for sale to the highest bidder. We make jokes about our vice president, and all we ask of a president is that he be likeable. We seem to have given up on the Pentagon's corrupt use of our tax dollars.

I've worked with many large and small publishers, and nearly all of them love the value that Instapaper provides to their readers.

So many times I wanted to go to Auschwitz, but I couldn't take up the courage to go there.

When I was in college, being a magician was not the classiest thing to be. It was like being a folk singer before Bob Dylan.

When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland.

I like my money right where I can see it: hanging in my closet.

People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.

Being onstage is just a feeling that you cannot duplicate anywhere else because the energy that the audience is giving you forces you to give more energy. It's such an output and exchange of energy. You can't do that anywhere else.

It's really fun to have a convection oven, even it if it's a little convection toaster oven. It really changes the way you bake.

I have to prove myself in a lot of ways - as an actor, as a person, as someone who can handle pressure.

Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.

Sometimes our biggest nightmare turns out to be our biggest gift. And it all comes down to our attitude. Life will throw us curve balls and disappointments even heartbreak. But ultimately we can choose if were going to be bitter or better for the experience.

Some people are really good at maneuvering their careers and images and I'm not one of those people.

Practice as if you are the worst perform as if you are the best.

An alcoholic has been lightly defined as a man who drinks more than his own doctor.

There's something magical about the idea that you can write something down and someone else can read it. I'm still mildly agog about that.

The way health care is funded in the U.S. is not sustainable. People are being kept alive who are probably better off dead. The cost of health care is too high, and you don't get much for it - it's twice as high in the U.S. as elsewhere, and it's because of the middlemen.

In the past, I've thrown myself into work so much there's been very little room for anything else.

There can be no compromise regarding corruption.

One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed.

Those who have tried meekness know the importance of being important.

I'm just attracted to playing people who are ostensible unlikable. That's not to say that there's something in there that makes you care. It might be that you just find them so awful that you just can't stop watching, like a car crash.

But I think it's intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.