The feeling of self-discovery, for me, is perennial.

The stories of kids who grew up in communities like mine weren't being written about in many books for kids.

I'm writing all the books I wish I had when I was a kid.

All I want kids to know is that I see them for who they are and not who everyone thinks they are.

I remember the first time I was booked into a jazz club. I was scared to death. I'm not a jazz artist. So I got to the club and spotted this big poster saying, 'Richie Havens, folk jazz artist.' Then I'd go to a rock club and I'm billed as a 'folk rock performer' and in the blues clubs I'd be a 'folk blues entertainer.'

I began writing 'The Cold Song' in the months following my father's death, when I felt this sense of loss, disappearance, of being right in the middle of life and wondering: 'What now? How to proceed?'

I can't turn on the television without seeing me, or open the newspaper without seeing me and, honestly, I'm sick to death of me.

If you want a studio to back you, you want to be doing something that's been done to death!