I am so sick of reading about another car bomb, another suicide bomber, another 10, 20, 30, 70, 100 people dead in a day, both Americans and Iraqis.

I was down with Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin-Carpenter. We did an acoustic tour, just the three of us, three chicks and three guitars.

And I don't think that success is going to destroy me at this point in my life, like I used to think.

No, my step-daughter just opened a theatre school for children, I have another daughter who works in the record industry and another who is going back to collage and I have two little ones at home.

Once your kids get older and get out of the house, it's not like it stops. They're on the phone with me every day; I'm intimately involved in their problems.

The key to change... is to let go of fear.

Well, the first year I lost my voice I didn't mind so much because I was going to have a baby and I was distracted with him anyway, I didn't even think about it that much, well, OK, this is what's happening.

And I kind of said to myself if I get my voice back I'm not going to take back the old anxiety about it and just focus on the limitations. I'm really going to enjoy it.

Yeah, I was in the phase for the last ten years or so where every record I made I said OK, that's the last one, I don't want to record anymore, I don't want to do this any more, I don't want to have a public life.

I have daughters who are writers and actors but no musicians.

I think it is wrong that we went against The U.N. and that we have alienated our allies and invaded a country that hasn't threatened us, that it is a pre-emptive strike.

Because I was starting out in my 20's. I wanted to do it on my own. I didn't want to use my dad or have people say I was using him.

It is the people who scream the loudest about America and Freedom who see to be the most intolerant for a differing point of view.

War is idiocy. We live on a small, small planet, and what we do to others is what we do to ourselves.

For the first time in 23 years I'm enjoying the process of supporting it, of going out and doing shows, and doing the interviews, and doing everything.

Every person's every action has an effect.

If a relationship is founded on love it doesn't end.

When my dad died a lot of songs came, and they're still coming.

My record label is treating me like I'm a new artist, which is exciting after all this time.

The new record started out being about loss, but it's morphed into being about how relationships go on even though one person is not in a body anymore.

Being in the studio is like painting, you know, you can really take your time, and try different things, and kind of go deep into it.

I needed to carve out my own place and find out what I was going to do.

But there's nothing that gives me more thrill than when I'm writing and a couplet works. I find the right rhyme, or it's just perfect. There's nothing that exciting.

It's a little dangerous for me to get outside myself and think about how I want people to see me.

I do not believe in terrorism, violence, destruction, murder, pre-emption, or War.

I love mixing up my genres.

I am so sick of reading about another car bomb, another suicide bomber, another 10, 20, 30, 70, 100 people dead in a day, both Americans and Iraqis.

I choose not to give energy to the emotions of revenge, hatred or the desire to subjugate.

I found it was really impossible for me to write songs when I couldn't sing.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so damn serious.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

Currently, not only are Americans taxed on what they earn, but those assets are taxed again when they are passed on to a loved one.

In 2001, Congress passed much needed tax relief to allow Americans to keep more of their hard earned money and spend it as they see fit - rather than how the federal government sees fit.

Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israeli bias - and rightly so.

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

In the United States, there one feels free... Except from the Americans - but every pearl has its oyster.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

The poorest residents of the gulf coast were most affected by the devastating hurricanes, and the poorest Americans have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden in Iraq.

The way Americans understand and treat other peoples almost guarantees that the world will suffer more trouble.