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.

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.

I think we will have a boy baby and he will be born on the 20th of August. Everyone else has a girl baby and at times I don't believe I should mind having a little Phyllis Dawn but Dearest wants a boy and I do.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

I don't like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don't like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it's essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.

Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

I didn't have any problem bonding with Honey, but I was plagued with insecurities about my ability to bring up my baby.

I got introduced to audiobooks because of having a baby.

I've been chased through airports with a screaming baby because the photographers are ruthless, and they want the picture.

The thing that stood out above and beyond all the experiences was this relationship with the nine-month-old baby. On weekends, I'd be thinking about going back to set on Monday just to see the baby.

But at the same time that the experience is pulling you apart, it's also bonding you. You have this joint venture! You both made this baby. And that's the thing I still can't get over.

My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.

I met my wife and, for the next ten years, we did no films at all. She did the first movie and then I did several after. My first movie was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Kazan and was called Baby Doll.

Yes, I've kissed a lot of guys. I like to kiss, but that's it. I don't go home with anyone. I sleep with my animals, like my baby monkey, Brigitte Bardot.

Carrying a baby is the most rewarding experience a woman can enjoy.

If we intensify our efforts we can have a cloned baby within a year or two, but I don't know whether we can intensify our efforts to that extent. We're not really under pressure to deliver a cloned baby to this world. What we are under pressure to do is to deliver a cloned baby that is a healthy one.

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.

My father described me as the oldest baby he'd ever seen. I apparently was very serious and reflective.