San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

I am connected to the past in a way that keeps me going forward. Every leap forward that I make is by reaching back and firmly getting a footing in the past, and pushing forward as hard as I can.

In New York, I'm around a lot of the reasons I started playing music in the first place. I live right behind Matt Umanov Guitars. I live on the street that Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan were walking down on the album cover. I recognize the history.

I eat right, I sleep, I work out, I'm happy. I have a beautiful family, nice friends. I choose the good things. I choose the happy, healthy things. I don't choose the bad, unhealthy, unhappy things.

My mother came from a generation that did not want nannies. She had her first child at 24 and her last - me - at 42.

In 'Off to War, Voices of Soldier's Children,' kids from Canada and the United States talk about what it is like when their mother or father goes off to war - and comes home again.

I know one of the blessings of being a mother is getting hips and I'm not going to have that because I chose not to have kids, so I believe God is going to give me some hips if I work for it.