I don't really pursue writing songs for other people. I guess one of the things I always think about is a good line in a song should be something I can hear myself saying.

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.

Now you're just being silly. He's a mercenary- he's not going to go about penning love letters, and really, what would he write? 'Anna...love you...grrr?'" Olivia to Annalia

If an overgrown child draws something on a piece of paper, you can't ask the paper what the drawing is supposed to represent.

I would spend some of it. I would help a lot of people around me. I will change a lot of people's lives around me, honestly.

The repression of the memory is dependent upon and related to the suppression of feeling, for as long as the feeling persists, the memory remains vivid.

As a young woman, I wanted nothing more than to see my name in lights.

English clubs are very exclusive. I played Royal Foxshire and they made me wear a suit and tie. . . in the shower.

If you cannot see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.

If you say you don't have time to do it once a day, then you're the one who probably needs it twice a day.

Led Zeppelin is the greatest. Robert Plant is one of the most original vocalists of our time. As a rock band they deserve the kind of success they're getting.

I’m confident enough in my masculinity and sexuality that I can say that Ryan Gosling is just dreamy in this movie.