I'm not trying to take Cate Blanchett down.

I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.

Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.

As I told you, from the time I was fifteen, I thought the theater was too much involved with actors trying to make the audience love them, being over emotional.

Because even at the age of fifteen, I used to go see all the Broadway shows and feel that they were sentimental, that they were pandering to the audience and trying to manipulate the audience. I had no use for practically any of the shows that were hits.

I've been trying to figure out for at least the last 10 years how to force myself into something more risky.

I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

I'm not a cheerleader. I'm not trying to pretend to be sweet and then come out and be bad. This is who I am.

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.

We must guard against the overreaching hand of big government trying to take away our freedom. And we must always protect the environment in a manner consistent with our values.

The biggest mistake people make in life is not trying to make a living at doing what they most enjoy.

I just play, and I'm always trying to write songs.

I've had an advantage; I've had a sort of open public acceptance in New York that doesn't happen to just anyone trying to make the transition you were talking about.

I'm not trying to be the new anybody.

I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers, their trying their hand at poetry.