Even though people like to say Destroyer [albom] is gibberish and all that, I usually know exactly what I'm saying at every single moment.

I always start with the lyrics, because starting with the music means the words will be bad.

I can't fool myself into thinking that musically I don't need other people, whether it's as a foil or just to come in and make real the ideas that are kind of vague and wispy in my head.

I'm not really sure that I have the same definition of things as other people. Like, when people talk about being "engaged" with the audience, I'm not exactly sure what they mean.

I don't banter with the audience, cause I don't have anything to say to them, and I'm not feeling any sense of ease or camaraderie when I'm on stage.

I like putting common expressions next to uncommon expressions. I'm sure in Poetry 101 there is a name for it, but it seems like you usually go one way or the other in rock music.

Kaputt was just a record that did really well for us, and therefore our record label and our booking agent said that we should go out and take our message to the world.

The more I abandon ideas of myself as a musician, the better a singer I become.

Once you feel like you can safely quit a melody, you are free to explore more important things.

I've never had any kind of work ethic. I've never sat down with the intention of writing a song.

I'm just kind of lazy and messed up and self-managed - self-mismanaged.

Everybody wishes to have something that somebody else has. And that's the root of all sorrows.

Be the light in someone's life.

My home is a little more complicated than coordinates on a map.

Why are we born? We are born so that we will not have to be born again.

Time is of your own making; Its clock ticks in your head. The moment you stop thought Time too stops dead.

It's neurotic fat women who hate me--they're stupid

Who told you I was a musician?

In great teams, conflict becomes productive. The free flow of conflicting ideas is critical for creative thinking, for discovering new solutions no one individual would have come to on his own.

It would be pretty shabby to appear flippant around a documentary that's about how much I love my fans.

I need a focus group like I need a hole in my head.