I just wanted to make something in the world and worry about the rest of it later and not get too caught up in rules.

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.

In quietness we find inner peace.

Mocking precedes learning the hard way.

An approachable person intuitively knows how to set new acquaintances at ease and create a safety net for them to be vulnerable and authentic.

The mirror crack'd from side to side "The curse has come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott

Necessity is the constant scourge of the lower classes, ennui of the higher ones.

Talk to everybody with reverence. Listen to everybody with reverence. Say things with reverence. You will always be happy and graceful.

Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You'll be afraid you can't achieve it. It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.

If things go our way, you might see why I'm a legend. And if your daddy has a problem with that, he'll find out why I'm the Legend Killer.

As electronic journalism came to be evaluated for its cost effectiveness, the network world began breaking up.

Don't let anyone see your vulnerable spots. Once they knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again.