I don't feel like I'm half as important as Elliott Smith or Kurt Cobain. And I'm not going to be somebody that became so unhappy that he succumbed.

This is what I wanted to do from the very beginning: write songs and make records and tour them with a good live band.

I read books all the time, I'm always reading. I'm not like somebody that reads really fast or a lot or anything, but I always have a book that I'm reading.

The fact that I have a lot of songs written doesn't keep me from wanting to write new ones, or new ones from coming.

There's enough adverbs in the world for you to start creating new ones.

I like the songwriting. I don't ever listen and then go back and change stuff. For me when I wrote the song, it's always really fun and exciting.

I can watch a movie about a person that can make me feel depressed or remind me of something else, and then later on I'll get an idea for a song.

I tend to like to write a song and then think about it for a while. I record a demo of it and then put it away and wait until I've gotten more thoughts on it or get sure exactly how to approach it.

I think music is a spiritual way to communicate transcendental things.

A lot of times, magazines end up presenting me as some type of weirdo, but I make my music for everyday people.

I'm not making any money, but I view it as some sort of investment, or like buying myself a great present.

Many people have just enough natural religion to make them immune to the real thing.

When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things.

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.

Utopias rest on the fallacy that perfection is a legitimate goal of human existence.

Mine alone is the country of my soul.

It is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disregard the world's opinion of himself.

All machinery is derived from nature, and is founded on the teaching and instruction of the revolution of the firmament.

Love is a usually force able of transforming an rivalry into friend.

The coyest maids make the fondest wives.