It took a bit of talking through administrative people, but only once did an attorney try and get in the way of the process and say their artist couldn't do it.

I made this record without a record label.

I don't know too many people because I stay at my house, I write songs, I go to the store.

Shouldn't the low strings be at the bottom?

I'm not really getting too involved. My position is, Here's the record. I'm at your disposal.

I love to get people to sing and play together.

Rewriting to me means, if I work on it for three days, I've rewritten it.

You could put this record on and not get jarred half-way through. I wanted it to be all cut from one cloth, and that was the way we took it through the whole production process.

I'm going to play as much as they want me to, as long as I can put up with what they book me.

Some people just come in, do it and they know it's right. It turns out better than you imagined it was going to sound. When that happens, you take it as a gift.

If you're asking me to compare myself to other people, I don't really know what other people are like.

I was living in Woodstock for a long time, and I thought, I got to get out of here, man.

A person like Carole King could make up something, change it, and actually improve it.

I had 25 or 30 songs. Sequencing the record, I left that to the producer. I'm not into doing that stuff.

Some gigs will go great. I figure you do a gig, and as many as can get there will get there.

Every one of the songs was based around picking an acoustic guitar. That was part of the concept from the beginning, that the tempos were going to go from slow to almost mid-tempo.

It took a bit of talking through administrative people, but only once did an attorney try and get in the way of the process and say their artist couldn't do it.

I saw Krishnamurti speak one time. And I thought, I'm not going to live here.

I taught myself how to play when I was about 13. I'm a lefty.

Doing this James Brown thing for the last couple of days has been ideal. But it's a different kind of fun.

Why do it, just because I can? That's kind of crazy.

I guess any time you believe in God you've got to be considered a spiritual person. That would make me a spiritual person. But I don't really know what that means.

I tend to think of all the songs the same - I give them all kind of equal rights.

Things kind of happen organically with me.

The bottom string is tuned to an open G.

I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.

The same people who never did their homework in high school are still doing that to this very day out in the real world.

People don't come to Asheville very often, and they don't know I'm there. I enjoy it. I like it.

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.