“I see the children with their boredom and their vacant stares.”

Normally, if someone goes bankrupt, you wipe out the debt and get a fresh start. But that’s not permitted with student loans. So the effect is to impoverish many graduates with very high debts.

I remember reading about how the decline of the steel industry had been affecting the Lehigh Valley, and I decided that’s what I was going to write the song about.

People pay a lot of money to go see shows now, they don’t wanna know about your technical problems, or if you’re not feeling good, they don’t wanna know we have a glitch. It’s their night, you better do something to earn that money.

Where have you been hanging out lately honey? You can’t dress trashy ’til you spend a lot of money.

When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.

my belonging to relief society has renewed, strengthened, and committed me to be a better wife and mother and daughter of God. my heart has been enlarged with gospel understanding and with love of the Savior and what He’s done for me. so to you, dear sisters.

In every heart there is a room, A sanctuary safe and strong, To heal the wounds from lovers past, Until a new one comes along

Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness But it’s better than drinkin’ alone.

Discipline is knowing what to do. Knowing when to do it. Doing it to the best of your abilities. Doing it that way every single time.

Shut up before I drop yo ass off at Koreatown. Now hold on, America, don’t start writing no letters. I’m just kidding. But am I lying?

Faith and fear both demand you believe in something you cannot see. You choose.

My voice is like a car that I get into and drive but I don’t know where I’m going. And I record everything.

You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings. … My songs are like my kids.

I always loved music, so I would probably either be in a band with another group of people, or an arranger, a producer, a musicologist, a music history guy, something to do with music. Either that, or I would probably be in jail. Or dead.

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.

Don’t wait for answers, just take your chances. Don’t ask me why.

The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.

I would rather die of passion than of boredom.

I have a fear of being boring.

This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.

The boredom of married life inevitable destroys love, when love has preceded marriage.

If you make decisions based upon people’s reactions or judgments then you make really boring choices.

No regrets. There is no time for that. Regret is boring.

I know definitive points in my life and in relationships because of my songs. I write my music so that I’ll never be bored of it.