Nothing you write if you hope to be good will ever come out as you first hoped.

I don't think I'm a great songwriter but I think I've learned a lot about it and I don't think there's any one way to do it. I don't think I can control it at all. I can just kind of hope that it happens.

It's possible that I've matured as a writer and I hope I've matured emotionally but I always find myself revisiting these adolescent scenes.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

I doubt I'll be singing forever because at some point people aren't going to want to hear my music and I hope that I'll still get the opportunity to write songs.

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.

I do 280 episodes of TV a year write 15 recipes for the magazine and publish an annual book. With all of that we try to get one weekend a month with Isaboo at our home in the Adirondacks to relax and recharge.

I made a real specific decision when I came out of school and most artists were writing about home - if you were a woman you were writing about being a woman - and I decided not to do that write about what you know. That's not what I do. I went as far away from home as possible in terms of the development of my imagination.

If you're a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don't like other people. I'm not like that I don't think.