Being on a microphone nightly has made me better at what I do, made me better able to sing a little bit, but also more confident at trying it.

People make maps of all the places I've mentioned. I knew that those people were out there. I wanted to create something for them.

There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and Girls in America / Have such a sad time together.

I really like narrative songs, but I wonder if that's a thing for some people. Once they've heard the story, do they really need to hear the story again?

I'm able to draw outside my own personal experiences. No one wants to hear the song about what I really did today, which is go get coffee and clean my apartment.

When people hit on feeling a certain melancholy or elation, it's a really exciting moment. I think making that connection is the goal, and what makes something great.

Sometimes things reveal themselves to you a little bit. I think it was Joan Didion that said, "We write to find out what we're thinking." And sometimes that happens.

I would never talk to a girl in a bar, like a pick-up thing. But I could talk to anyone if they wore a t-shirt of a band I like.

Just looking into something kind of analytically can give a lot of ideas.

People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

One of the things is my process requires a lot of repetition. I can probably drive people crazy because I'm interested in playing a song twenty times in a row.

I pray for the ability to love you without expecting any return.

Snowflake’s journey is a metaphor. A metaphor for what, exactly?I have no freaking clue.

There’s no such thing as perfection, and even if there were, I think it’d be rather boring.

I am a part of you, and the part of me, that is a part of you, will always be a part of you. That part will never leave you.

It (broadcast journalism) is a brutal arena where the knives are sharp and the toughest Kevlar vest in the world will not protect you forever.

It's your thoughts behind the words you speak that create your attitude.

The first treasure California began to surrender after the Gold Rush as the oldest: her land.

Whether you are happy or whether you are sad, it is wise to remember you are really in process.

Those things that are the most obvious are the very things we've most likely to overlook.

Images are more real than anyone could have supposed.