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

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.

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.

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.

We all have a voice. Some a whisper, some a roar. If you can roar, roar for others. If you can only whisper, keep trying. Every roar started small.

And I myself a Catholic will be, So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee. Hail, Bard triumphant! and some care bestow On us, the Poets militant below.

You jump right over anything in the past, and you don't analyze problems.

Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.

The human emotional system can be broken down into roughly two elements: fear and love. Love is of the soul. Fear is of the personality.

I'm seeing more and more books by celebrity authors, and I'm not happy to see them. I'd rather see publishing budgets devoted to genuine talents.

I haven't physically attacked anyone in a couple of years.

Because Music is a language that lives in the spiritual realms, we can hear it, we can notate it and create it, but we cannot hold it in our hands

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise.

Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering and the lonely right there where you are.