I'm swept along by larger forces out of my control.

It was funny to just take a backseat and be like, 'Wow, I might be in this crazy place, but maybe I don't need to understand everything, maybe I don't need to be someone else.'

The more I know, the more I realise I don't know. And the more I realise I'll never truly understand.

You always know when a real inspiration is behind the melody, arrangements, even lyrics. And I know that's really vague, but it's true.

Raucous drunken trumpets and instrumentation tend to guide the way you think. They can give you a path to follow lyrically.

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story.

My dad is obsessed with music, so I was raised around this guitar player that really wanted me to be a guitar player.

I think that sonically, music speaks volumes more than words do, and I have always thought that and will continue to think that for the rest of my life.

I'm sure that's every adolescent's complaint about their home town. When a city is unstimulating, you get pretty isolated.

I want a song that raises the hair on the back of my neck when I sing it live and I want to feel it every time.

I feel like I've met most people I look up to musically. I just want to meet Chef.

I can't explain some of the things I've seen and...I've done some things I can't explain.

We have 51 golf courses in Palm Springs. He [President Ford] never decides which course he will play until after the first tee shot.

Knowledge is a thing that one cannot have enough of. It is the fruit of wisdom, to be eaten carefully and digested fully, unlike that lunch you are bolting down, little friend.

I never have kids in movies or in TV shows.

You just wish sometimes that people would treat you like a human being rather than seeing your gender first and who you are second.

Our actions are the ground we walk on.

Among the things that you, and you alone, are the absolute and final judge of is whether or not you are a success.

The actual act of writing brings me such pleasure - to tell stories, to engage in cultural criticism, to reflect, to question, all of it is invigorating.

It may not be what you would've chosen, but we all have a responsibility to be active citizens and shape our system and our future.

What is a gentleman? It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise; and possessed of all these qualities to exercise them in the most graceful manner.