"A lot of people seem to get preoccupied with what I'm wearing as opposed to the music."

"A song that sounds simple is just not that easy to write. One of the objectives of this record was to try and write melodies that continue to resonate."

"The bands that wrote the big, heroic rock songs - I really wanted to make a record like that."

"You can't be in the public eye without making mistakes and having some regrets and having people analyze everything you do."

"There's a lot of integrity with musicians; you really still aspire to grow, and be great, to be the best version of yourself you can be."

"I have been around for a long, long time. I didn't make it 'til I was older. I went through the period when women were not getting signed, particularly if you were writing songs that were lyrically propelled."

"I try to conduct my life with a little levity."

"I draw from my family and my friends and I feel like that small-town person. The achievements, the materialistic possessions have really become to mean less. They mean nothing."

"Artists have really never had any representation on Capitol Hill, because it's not the nature of the artist to join together and make a unified presence. Those days kind of died in the '60s."

"I didn't get into making music for the fame aspect. There are people who do desire that."

"Steve McQueen was from a time when you didn't know every little dirty thing about our public figures. He and James Dean were very mysterious, archetypal American heroes."

"I don't spend a lot of time thinking about regrets because there's nothing I can do."

"I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."

"I hate how I've had the mantle set on my shoulders as being against the record label. We've had some issues, but that is the nature of business."

"Beck said he didn't believe in the theory of a song coming through you as if you were an open vessel. I agree with him to a certain extent."

"I don't set goals for myself too much, but I'm always trying to write that one great song."

"I have yet to write that one song that defines my career."

"Most writers like to maintain some sort of anonymity. For me, making videos was an assault."

"Some people are really good at maneuvering their careers and images and I'm not one of those people."

"When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting."

"No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers will still spring up in the middle of nowhere."

"People don't realize that I'm really funny and I'm an excellent bridge player."

"The greatest hits in some weird way marks the end of something."

"However I am is however I am. When you see me onstage or in the press, there's not a lot of thought and calculation that goes into it."

"I've only been making records since 1991. When you look at the long-standing careers of people like Joni, it's not very long!"

"I wish I was having as much fun as the press reports said I had."

"It's not having what you want, it's wanting what you've got."

"Music really becomes the soundtrack to the major events to your life."

"It's interesting when I jog, how much the music makes a difference. You can pretty much count on the Foo Fighters to get your heart rate up."

"There's so much of it you can't control. There is no handbook for how to conduct yourself in the public world."

"That feeling of freedom, open highways of possibilities, has kind of been lost to materialism and marketing."

"Music commands how we feel, dictates what we experience in our feelings."

"The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own."

"The writing process for me is pretty much always the same - it's a solitary experience."

"The beauty of having a producer is that you have someone who says, You're finished."

"I hate that word, mature, but I guess I am growing up."

"I'm not much of a partier anymore. I enjoy clarity much more."

"When I reach the point that I write Yesterday, then I can retire."

"Your art kind of changes as you get older, by nature of the fact that you're hopefully gaining wisdom and you're starting to watch things with a better overview."

"I can always tell when people have had plastic surgery."