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

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.

As an adult, I took ballet classes three times a week, and I believed it gave me better posture, a stronger body, and made me more graceful.

Stepfathers are no less than those of blood: The spirit is more comely than the flesh. Fathers are defined by how they love and not by how they multiply or breed.

I had a marvelously happy childhood.

Sacrifice is a step beyond convenience.

I haven't really decided to be an actor yet! I started doing plays when I was about 15 or 16. I only did it because my dad saw a bunch of pretty girls in a restaurant and he asked them where they came from and they said drama group. He said, 'Son, that is where you need to go.'

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

'Grimm,' I think, is a unique show in a lot of ways. There is certainly nothing on TV that looks like 'Grimm'.

I think if a woman is feeling aggressive, she should be aggressive and not hold back.

My idea here is that, inasmuch as certain cognitive tasks and principles are tied to nature's laws, these tasks and principles are indifferent to language, culture, gender, or the particular mode of information that is provided.

Kids will reach whatever expectation you set for them.

Stop hating yourself for everything you aren’t. Start loving yourself for everything you are.

People have to stop employing illegal immigrants.

Fidelity is seven tenths of business success.

You want to make sure this particular car is going to please the customer and then you're going to be rewarded with something that is going to please the shareholder.

I was a very romantic, overly dramatic young lady, which served me well as a songwriter. Especially as someone who had to focus on lyrics and melody, because if you're a dramatic and romantic person, lyrics come easy, and you turn every single short-term relationship into the biggest 'Romeo-and-Juliet' story ever.

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

Do not miss your children's childhood. Do not be away 200 nights a year as I was. Do not put strains on your marriage or family.

Writing songs is super intimate. It's a bit like getting naked.

The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.

What do I really think? What do I believe in, without the horse manure?

I've always been sort of drawn to storytelling, and I was always very playful growing up.

Life is too short to do anything that's not challenging.

A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life.

There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit.