If I had to pick an artist that I look up to and am inspired by, it's Matisse because of how many times he would paint the same idea until he felt like he maybe got it right, and I try to do the same thing with my writing.

There've been times on tour when people have said to us, 'Yeah, your band is really simple.' But it's really not.

It's even easier to write about the past now that I'm happy and have better stuff to write about. That's why someone like Bob Dylan can make so many records over so long a time; it's not like he's been sad all this time. He's really successful!

What I really care about is writing... Some people feel about touring the way I feel about writing, which is, 'Whoa, I can't believe I get to do this as a job.'

My mom was a teacher. In the 1960s and '70s, she taught history at two largely African American public high schools in Washington, D.C. - McKinley Tech and H.D. Woodson. Her example taught me the importance of equality for all Americans.

A system of education is not one thing, nor does it have a single definite object, nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.

With longer life spans and better health and education, many feel that giving birth to a baby a mere couple of decades after they themselves were in the cradle is a little premature.

I'm somewhat horrified because I don't think the young people today even know what history is. Some of them don't' even study History at school anymore or Geography and they don't know where one place is from another.