I never want to listen to the songs in front of people close to me. There's an emotional honesty in that place where it's not earnest but it's vulnerable.

I'm definitely preoccupied by thinking I'm just a biological thing. I want to feel that there's more, but so often I'm reminded of how we're just like baboons, basically.

Music was my friend when I was a teenager, and I would inhabit and take comfort in lyrics. That's how I want to write.

I started growing roses. I enjoyed the craft of it and that they're difficult to look after; they can provide joy.

I like the fervor of religious music, the zealous aspect - that preachers can go from a conversational cadence into this passionate singing.

When you're making an album with people who made your favorite records as a rebellious teenager, it feels like you've achieved something.

You can get into a comfort zone writing lyrics, like wearing a mask. But I wanted to feel uncomfortable when I was listening back to the lyrics; I wanted to squirm.

I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs.

I was definitely inspired by gospel music, or old-school R&B I got into some Good God gospel compilations.

I'm just worn down and weary of bands whose lyrics are cryptic and self-referential.

I'm appalled by the tendency of some rock records to perfect everything to the point where it sounds like Botox and polish it so heavily that there's no humanity left in it.

As if it wouldn’t rain without you...

To feel sorry for oneself is one of the most disintegrating things the individual can do to himself.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.

Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.

My only wickedness is that I love you; my only goodness, the same.

Players very widely disagree with me about what's hard and what's easy. and in a way, 'I won, but it was a fight' is the best compliment a game can receive.

Guns don't walk into a theater by themselves and shoot people. You have to look at who's behind it, who's behind the trigger?

It is the duty of every patriot to hate his country creatively.

I don't expect our leaders to be free of mistakes, I expect our leaders to own up to them.

By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It's the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.