Alison Krauss

It's impossible to make a record when you're ill because it affects how you listen to things. You can't make decisions. It all sounds terrible.

The grand old lady of bluegrass? Well, wouldn't that be a wonderful title to have? I hope I do enough to earn it some day.

I don't know if bliss is possible and I've always thought that my best times will be later in life.

I don't look for bliss, just contentment.

When it's open and honest, that's when the real nature of who you are as a vocalist or as a performer, all of that stuff can finally start to become what it's supposed to be. Like a settling into yourself. It's not even a musical thing, it's a whole mindset, a whole acceptance of who you were supposed to be. Life sounds good.

You know, if you really want to fiddle the old-time way, you've got to learn the dance. The contra-dances, hoedowns. It's all in the rhythm of the bow. The great North Carolina fiddle player Tommy Jarrell said, 'If a feller can't bow, he'll never make a fiddler. He might make a violin player, but he'll never make no fiddler.'

Being in the studio is a really romantic time.