I’m not a goody-two-shoes. I’m just a father with four children.

I do not like onions. It’s so funny because I am probably one of the least picky eaters ever. Pretty much any type of new food, I’ll try it, I’ll eat it. But onions, and...

So I think hip-hop is moving and is going to continue to move in the direction of rappers just being honest with themselves, whether you’re talking about Common and Mos Def or Nas and 50...

I summoned my courage and auditioned for a choir job in a Catholic Church and landed a job there. It paid about thirty dollars a month.

I don’t meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

I been doing music my whole life.

Since day one my thing has always been to play the music.

There are certain things I want to keep to me. I don’t discuss my private life.

I would say that I’m finding my voice in more ways than one.

There is nothing so stable as change.

I mean, I’m not unhappy, but there’s still so much I want to do.

I’m not worried. I’m just so grateful to be in the position that I’m in. I’m just going with the flow right now, and I think my album will come together quite nicely because I...

A lot of people thought I was going to be a one-hit wonder, so I had that chip on my shoulder.

The last 16 years of my daddy’s life, he got to work for me, and that made him his own boss and he like that.

No, I don’t like recording. It’s a bore.

I was at the Smithsonian for twenty years, and I’m still at the Smithsonian as a curator emeritus, and I still plan to figure out what that means for me at this point in my...

I’ve had plenty of big hits and plenty of big misses.

Mary Lou is a beautiful person. She’s from my hometown, Pittsburgh. Mary Lou I love very much. She’s a very accomplished musician.

It was so much fun playing simple American bluegrass. I got to meet Doc Watson.

I always approach music by thinking about the person I’m playing with and listening to the way they play and trying to enhance whatever is going on.

I think I’m in a really nice position, where I’m sure I could do another show if I wanted to do one, but right now the main thing in my mind is writing songs.

For us to keep claiming this isn’t Hip Hop and that isn’t Hip Hop doesn’t make sense to me.

Beauty is less important than quality.

There wasn’t much around. After the shows, we would go to an Italian restaurant that a friend of ours owned and so I didn’t get a chance to see much. Actually, that holds true of...

I go through a thousand songs to find ten for a new record.

I’d just like to be treated like a regular customer.

There are too many people that depend on me. I’m too obligated. I’m in too far to get out.

I finished the recordings I had started with Eleven. Matt Cameron joined for the rest of those sessions.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it’s hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I...

It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.

Most often the music does end up in the movie, and sometimes there’s a point where I wish that it wasn’t, just because I think the score would be more effective if there was less...

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we’d just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around...

I didn’t know how babies were made until I was pregnant with my fourth child.

I’m not a big fan of Women’s Liberation, but maybe it will help women stand up for the respect they’re due.

You get used to sadness, growing up in the mountains, I guess.

Serious musicians are finding it harder and harder to have a voice in the world of music these days.

Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not...

I’ve been compared to people since the beginning. When you’re starting out, you need a comparison so people will understand you right away.

But the teacher would let me sing, you know. She’d take me around to different classes and let me sing. And I could sing without stuttering.

Dad bought me a toy drum one Christmas, and I eventually destroyed it. I wanted a real drum and he bought me a snare drum. Dad continued to buy me one drum after the other.

I use dropped D quite often and open G and open E sometimes. And sometimes I make up things, like dropping the G string down a step.

I was wildly out of style when that television theme song suddenly pushed its way onto the Top Ten. It was certainly not the record company trying to make that happen.

Jazz is not the format where I want to stay, but it really is a starting point for me.

The worst thing about being famous is the invasion of your privacy.

Just writing and being in the studio was like therapy for me.

I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss...

I’m trying to have my own thing, and I don’t know if it’s even possible. I didn’t realize so many people actually think I’m trying to be like my dad. I read comments like ‘She’s...

I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we...

Especially in local elections, because hardly anybody pays attention to those – but it’s really important who’s mayor and who’s on the city council, county commissioners, sheriffs, district attorney, and of course the school board.