I love being the center of attention.
I can't even explain to you how terrible that feels, that I equate dating a woman with punishment, shame, guilt, disappointment, reproach, reprimand, persecution. It's a nightmare.
You cannot avoid war in life, you cannot avoid the fear of terrorism, you cannot avoid those things now, they are a part of everyday demeanor.
I feel my shows are like a late-night talk show that we settle down and do every night.
There are people in the world who have the power to change our values.
I'm a good music provider, and I'm fine with that. I'm a quality music manufacturer.
I'm willing to make compromises based on someone I think is the one, but I think it's psychologically important to people when they're famous to be the only famous person they know.
There's a constantly applicable nature to soul music, whereas sometimes pop music can be a periodical.
I've realized you can use a fork as a spoon if you use it rapidly enough.
I quit the media game. I'm out. I'm done.
They say stay in the lines, but there's always something better on the other side.
Don't be scared to walk alone. Don't be scared to like it.
I've never been a bad boy.
Nothing feels worse than having to break the stage down before the performance, and I mean nothing.
I just sort of lost my head for a little while.
What I've learned in my life, it's a very interesting social study for me, to go back and forth between being the guy at home and being the guy on the road and being the guy in studio and being the guy in the interview. The environment around you has so much to do with your character, and when I'm home, my character really changes quite a bit.
I really don't want to be a hunk.
I'm getting to a point where everything is becoming streamlined in my life. I'm learning how to stand onstage for two hours and play in front of thousands of people as if I am completely in the moment every moment.
I'm not deluded enough to think that everyone who knows my name is a listener. You know, I hope that part of that interest - part of that public interest - has to do with me still making records that people like.
I like giving people something they don't want to miss the next time. It's a show with little twists and turns and curves. It has me being silly and stupid and compassionate and completely deep.
It's very liberating when you finally realize it's impossible to make everyone like you.
My hits are not hits.
I feel strikingly domestic. We're in our own world with two busses and trucks.
There's so many inspiring people out there.
The night I was recognized for 'Daughters' at the Grammys was the night this record started. I knew I had bought the time to learn everything I needed before I started this one. 'Continuum' is not a shot in the dark, it's not a guesstimation.
A man's got two shots for jewelry: a wedding ring and a watch. The watch is a lot easier to get on and off than a wedding ring.
Ladies, if you want to know the way to my heart... good spelling and good grammar, good punctuation, capitalize only where you are supposed to capitalize, it's done.
My fear is that I go up to the girl of my dreams and say 'I'm sorry, but I've got to say hello to you,' and she slides the stool back and gets up and walks away, saying, 'Not for me, Bub. I don't want anything to do with you.'
I need some kind of emotional stake in it to write my lyrics, assuming that place. It might just be an emotion I understand but am not currently experiencing necessarily.
I'm singing what I want to sing based on the emotion of what that day feels like. That's what comes out of my mouth and guitar. That impacts people. They know anything can happen.
I'm not as surprised in going from playing 1,000 seats to 4,000 seats as I was from 100 to 500 seats.
I hope that what it comes down to at the end of the day is that people believe that I believe what I'm singing. It comes down to being believable. You don't have to be likeable; generally, though, I think I am.
I hate being the heartbreaker. Hate it. If I date somebody and it doesn't work out, it's another nightmare for me.
I knew what I wanted to do when I was 13 and I had to go through four years of high school to get out. That's a blessing, because I never had to lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling going, 'What am I going to do with my life?'
Hopefully people can see my music is tethered to my brain.
Every song I put on a record could be a single and I just pack my bags for it... and the minute it takes off, I'm not gonna be home for a while.
I don't write songs in order to stick it to my exes. I don't release underground dis tracks.
I have the obsessiveness of someone who's a sober, recovering addict displacing his addiction. Except I never had the addiction.
Have you ever loved somebody, loved her completely, but had to end the relationship for life reasons?
I'm trying everything I can not to be jaded 'cause I don't like jaded musicians.
I get recognized somewhere in between like local meteorologist and national meteorologist.
When you do an interview with me, you're talking to a cheap imitation of the person that I really am. There's no magic in my words, it's just me talking.
It's so interesting how success hits people and how they react to it.
People want to see musicians sing things that come from their own mind and own heart in real time, responding to the moment for them.
If you never stop when you wave goodbye you just might find, if you give it time, you will wave hello again...
You make a choice in your life, and it affects your life in all the ways, good and bad.
It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again.
It's almost charity work, what people have done, turning other people on to my music.
Maybe someday you can accuse somebody of being a poseur by selling out and playing blues music, but that's just not going to happen in my lifetime.
