I never decided to start singing, to be a singer.

We're probably a couple of freaks who've created their own little universe, are living in our own little world and that's the only place where we can survive.

Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.

If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.

A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.

I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.

I think most musicians know if they make the same record twice, even if they say they don't.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.

The lyrics are different from Nick Cave songs and lyrics. His songs are very narrative.

People who have become great have only become great because they bought that greatness. They purchased that greatness but only through the currency of time.

Life is a magical journey, so travel endlessly to unfold its profound and heart touching beauty.

By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty.

Of course, parents are the most important people in a child's life.

I think you miss out on a lot of stuff when you're so protected and isolated.

I look at it [Scream movie] and think, wow, I can't believe I wrote that at such a young age. I also look at it and go, ohhh ouch, that dialogue, whoa.

I don't know what people mean when they ask me whether I'm embracing my whiteness. Whiteness is ubiquitous.

When you repeat a mistake, it is not a mistake anymore: it is a decision.

To follow Jesus means putting him first, and stripping ourselves of all the things that oppress our hearts.

Black people have this thing about calling themselves apes and monkeys I know they get real (whatever) and I don't blame em'. But I feel like I'm a brute. I am, but I'm smart though. I'm not a dummy.