I'm a little more comfortable in that role. I love being in the studio.

It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you're writing all the time. You're collecting songs. I've had songs that have been collected over a two-year period for my next record.

It's something I've always loved doing. I'm not one of the artists who comes in and just does my bit. I'm there every second of every day. That's my hands-on situation.

You're always in a different headspace when you make each record, so hopefully they're all different. You just pick up things that you wish you hadn't done on the first one.

It's not the case of turning in a bunch of songs and recording the next month. I think you're looking for songs all year long and you're writing all year long.

I've always been a pretty private, quiet kind of person and so I haven't had to change my life really at all, I don't think.

They're mostly done before we went into the studio, although I do like writing in the studio.

I'm a little more comfortable in that role. I love being in the studio.

My father's record collection was all country. That's how I was exposed to it.

I think the industry is oblivious to the fact that most people listen to all kinds of stuff. I personally don't know of anyone who listens to only one genre of music. It's vanity because no one does.

Once we get into the groove, we're kind of like long-distance runners - that adrenalin kicks in for me and I just keep running - and I don't stop!

I think it took me a while to convince Nashville that what I do is genuine and my heart's in the right place, and I love country music.

A song like 'Once in a Lifetime' is inspired by my marriage - it's a good, life-changing happening in my life. I think when you find your once-in-a-lifetime love, that's what everybody's looking for.

At the end of the day, the Grammys are about recognizing genres that are making an impact.

Being with my family is very important to me, and touring is very important to me, too, because it's who I am. It's what I do.

Getting on the bus and touring was my life. And when that was not around, I felt myself a bit lost at times, because that was all I had.

I always wish I'd had more mentors, better mentors, wiser mentors, people who were proper professional working musicians to guide me as I was coming up.

I don't swear much; I've taken those words out of my vocabulary, and having kids, you have to have two sets of language!

I love the beginnings of artists when all they've got is raw talent and nothing else.

I tend to write better when I'm not touring.

I think everybody has different priorities in their life. People live their lives differently. People become famous through all sorts of different reasons... some of it through art and some of it through just wanting to be famous. And I think how that all starts tends to reflect how you live your life daily.

I think there's just so many people in the world that don't feel understood, and when you hear a song and you go, 'Oh, that song understands me,' that's an amazing feeling. I get it when I listen to the radio... That's a beautiful part of music.

I've never wanted to name an album from a song title if I could avoid it because I like it to be a body of work.

Red carpets are pretty unpredictable. You can go from one person asking you what you're wearing to the next person asking you about the situation in Haiti. It's the extreme juxtaposition, and some of the questions can throw me!

Sometimes I just cry at random stuff!

The world is getting so reality-driven these days. It seems to be accelerating exponentially. But it's a dangerous game for a lot of people.

You go through life experiences. Each record captures a different turning point in my life.

I only hope when I have my own family that everyday I see a little more of my father in me.

Nothing like seeing the genesis of the relationship between an instrument and a child.

Raw is a good place for an artist. It's where the truth comes out.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

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

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

Teachers started recognizing me and praising me for being smart in science and that made me want to be even smarter in science!

Sure, I get the blues. But what I try to do, is apply joy to the blues, you know? I don't know if it's a technique, or just being bent that way, being raised by the folks I was raised by.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.