In the songs I can still be really really direct but in interviews when I'm explaining my songs I shouldn't be so direct about who they're about.
Americans are always mortified when I tell them this, but in England, it's a tradition to put your plaques and photographs and awards and gold records and stuff in your bathroom. I don't know why.
I have never been insecure, ever, about how I look, about what I want to do with myself. My mum told me to only ever do things for myself, not for others.
I wouldn't be able to write a song like 'Someone Like You' and get someone else to sing it because it's so personal. It's like giving away your heart.
If I were a writer and not a singer in 10 years, I don't know how I'd feel about writing really personal songs and getting someone else to sing them.
I think it's shameful when you sell out. It depends what kind of artist you wanna be, but I don't want my name anywhere near another brand.
It has gotten worse as I'm becoming more successful. My nerves. Just because there's a bit more pressure, and people are expecting a lot more from me.
Especially as a director on 'West Wing,' I directed a lot of different things in a lot of different ways and really stretched my wings.
When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!
A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests.
When I was younger, I just thought that my plans were probably going to be more exciting than my parents' plans or the establishment. I sort of got by on being a little bit of a rebel.
The fact of the matter is, when I'm on tour, I'm juggling so hard to keep all the balls in the air that I don't often get to really enjoy what I'm out there doing.
Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.
There is nothing to compare with the instantaneous feedback a singer gets from the people sitting in front of him. That is where it all comes together - all the rehearsing and working to get everything just exactly right.
We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation.
Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.
People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.
I was born in Riverside and spent my whole growing-up years in Florence, a little township on the Delaware River. I tell people that I'm from the West Coast of New Jersey.
Living in New York, you get a lot of confidence; when I go back to Michigan, I realise how obnoxious and demanding and straightforward I am.
Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism.
I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.
