Basically, no one else gives me any opinions on lyrics. I don't ask for them. If they did, I would listen.

We're probably a couple of freaks who've created their own little universe, are living in our own little world and that's the only place where we can survive.

Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.

If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.

A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.

I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.

I think most musicians know if they make the same record twice, even if they say they don't.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.

The lyrics are different from Nick Cave songs and lyrics. His songs are very narrative.

No sooner is it a little calmer with me than it is almost too calm as though I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy

Action is movement with intelligence

There is an enemy-maker in each of us. We make enemies of the people we love the most and the people we know the least.

Americans tend to believe they can do anything with or without any training or experience.

Our society's values are being corrupted by advertising's insistence on the equation: youth equals popularity, popularity equals success, success equals happiness.

Nothing, says Longinus, can be great, the contempt of which is great.

Government has really been growing, a lot of largesse, but the people in the real world aren't. And that's what has to change. Government has no conformity at all with the real world.

While love is one of God's attributes, it's not his only attribute. God is also holy and just.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.

Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting.