A lot of me figuring out how to love myself more involves finding the things that I'm ashamed of and looking them right in the eye.

You become more animalistic when you don't know what's coming next - you have to be on guard, but at the same time you're also more receptive.

Someone can only be vampiric if you allow it.

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.

I had an unspoken treaty with myself to never lie in my lyrics, so, for a long time, when I wrote love songs, I would use genderless pronouns, like "dear" and "darling" - like some kind of granny!

It's very human to try to put things into boxes, and it's hard for us to reconcile with grey areas, and yet somehow that's the area I find the most poetic, the juiciest.

I try to have things change before I get bored, and I figure other people might enjoy that too; I try not to let anything repeat for long enough that you can get used to it.

I do love voices so much that I will use them and manipulate them. The presence of a human voice in a piece of music is really exciting, even if it's just someone's breathing.

With song titles, I try to keep a healthy sense of humor while saying something at the same time.

When you actually make a new friend, and you make music and laugh really hard together, that can give you a lot of confidence and nourishment and encouragement.

Only after a piece of music is done does my frontal cortex allow me to organize what might be trying to come out of my subconscious.

The death has an only color.

It was cool to feel this global electronic thing happening. But it just got to be too much at a certain point.

There is always something particularly delightful about exceptions to a rule.

Arrogance is the act of the great; presumption that of the little.

I must have gone through $10 million during my career. Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.

Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace.

If you are not able to be silent, you will not be able to speak well.

Temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor.

I just try to concentrate on concentrating.

The privatization plan weakens Social Security and threatens our economic security by creating trillions of dollars in new debt.