I was always friends with a lot of guys, maybe because their girlfriends were girly-girls, and they felt safe with me.

I've been writing and making my own music for a long time.

I don't really sell many records.

My real priorities were my family - my kids and Bruce - and my work with the E Street Band.

I like writing a body of music that has a cohesive, emotional thread through it.

You come to the city, and you have a chance to find out who you really are.

For writing, I get up early in the morning - 5 o'clock, 4:30. I'm a morning person... So I try to do it while people are asleep. The mornings are the nicest.

You know how you get close to something you want and then you start doing things to ensure that you don't quite get it? I did a lot of that.

I grew up in an era where you had to find your own way as a woman. When I was a kid, there was this whole physical and emotional neatness and purity that a woman was supposed to have, and I didn't fit into that.

When I was younger, I'd go to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and watch this beautiful clip of Billie Holiday playing with a bassist, a pianist and Gerry Mulligan, who was a friend of mine, on baritone sax. At one point, she looks over at Gerry, and they just smile. When those moments happen, it's just lovely.