I think that people vibe off your energy and I'm a pretty mellow person.

If you're going to have more than one person read your book, they're going to have totally different opinions and responses. No person - no two people - read the same book.

The reason I did the book about holidays is that you're a different person on holiday. You're sleeping somewhere unfamiliar, knocking about with people you've never met and for 10 days you're someone else. You're out of your comfortable zone.

In a state of poverty, illiteracy, people just remain exposed to all kinds of manipulation. That's what we have lived. It's easier to tell a poor person, 'You know what, you are poor, you're hungry because the other one has taken away your rights.'

I realized in the early days I just didn't edit at all. But I think you become a little more cagey with your lyrics when you know more people are going to hear them and make assumptions about you as a person. Realizing that, you want to be a little more opaque.

Your average person in Illinois doesn't really even know what workers' comp is. The average person doesn't know really what's going on in the pension system. They know their taxes are too high; they know we've got a deficit. But getting that message out and helping the people of Illinois really understand what's going on, that's hard.

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