Funny songs aren't usually that good. Like Weird Al and maybe a couple of Beatles songs, but it's kind of hard to bring humor into rock music in an interesting way.

The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.

Being in a rock band, I feel a certain responsibility to have a weird haircut. I mean, who else gets to do that?

Music is made by individuals. Some artists will be very politically overt in their songs, some will be more subtle. You have to be true to yourself, true to your nature.

The idea of dancing to bad house music is something I could never get behind.

I think of hip hop as a mass media, radio, MTV thing. It’s been extremely relevant over the last 10 years and rock music is just not anymore—-a tear rolls down my cheek as I say that.

Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.

What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.

A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career.

I think filmmakers all secretly wanna be musicians and all musicians secretly wanna be filmmakers.

The film Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

The fates lead him who will

This world should be much more open and should be much more free, so the young people would have the chance to exercise the quality of their lives.

Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

The corrupt establishment knows that we are a great threat to their criminal enterprise.

Elaine: Ugh, I hate people. Jerry: Yeah, they're the worst.

In documentary, which is the only thing I'm really very familiar with, women are very easily relegated into a producer role.

From serenity comes gentleness, comes lasting strength.

I don't like being rumbled, I like to be invisible.

There should be some kind of radar that lets you know when your soul mate is nearby.

Eventually, I think cinematography for every culture is a way to explore different stories, different ways of also delivering a story.