You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.

An artist has gotta be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming.

I don't really count myself as a very sophisticated businessperson. I'm a creative artist. All I know from business I've picked up along the way.

It's a tough pill to swallow, but if I was going to stand for something as an artist, and every time that had consequences I decided not to do it, that'd be pointless. I have to listen to people, and I always try to meet people with understanding.

My work as an artist is completely separate from my work as a philanthropist.

Unless I am both capable of and willing to reopen the wound every time I write a song, if I choose to not look inside myself to write music, I'm really not worth being called an artist at all.