“My sister works in an inner-city school in Greenville, South Carolina, and she brought many of her at-risk kids to our show yesterday to the sound-check. It was amazing how these kids opened up with music. Music teaches so much about focus and concentration and group dynamics and appreciation for subtlety and beauty. And that's being taken away from schools.”
“I'm in the public eye. I've sold 14 million records -- so 14 million individuals have bought my records and have sat down and intimately listened to them. And if I think about that many people paying attention to me, I'd better say something worthwhile. I do have a personal ideology when it comes to the work that I do and the art that I make. And it's based on just wanting to say something that has substance and to try to move people with music -- and give them an idea of the glimpse I have into what's possible for us.”
“I just want to be known as a good songwriter who wrote songs that were enduring. I hope my music gives people a glimpse of how empathetic we were and how desirous we were of a better society.”
“That kind of violence is dangerous to me, to be beamed out via satellite to the rest of the country. Since I don't watch television very much, when I do check in, I'm horrified. But I don't think it took a massacre in a high school in America for me to see that there's too much violence or that children aren't being taught to use their own judgment when they watch television.”
