I really like narrative songs, but I wonder if that's a thing for some people. Once they've heard the story, do they really need to hear the story again?

People make maps of all the places I've mentioned. I knew that those people were out there. I wanted to create something for them.

There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and Girls in America / Have such a sad time together.

I'm able to draw outside my own personal experiences. No one wants to hear the song about what I really did today, which is go get coffee and clean my apartment.

When people hit on feeling a certain melancholy or elation, it's a really exciting moment. I think making that connection is the goal, and what makes something great.

Sometimes things reveal themselves to you a little bit. I think it was Joan Didion that said, "We write to find out what we're thinking." And sometimes that happens.

I would never talk to a girl in a bar, like a pick-up thing. But I could talk to anyone if they wore a t-shirt of a band I like.

Just looking into something kind of analytically can give a lot of ideas.

People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.

One of the things is my process requires a lot of repetition. I can probably drive people crazy because I'm interested in playing a song twenty times in a row.

One of the things you do in a band is the more you stay together, the more you play to your strengths.

And I howled at that swarm and the crops and the sky, and the stars should have quit because there weren't no reason to be shining.

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.

When in Rome, live in the Roman way.

The senses are gateways to the intelligence. There is nothing in the intelligence which did not first pass through the senses.

Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

I love photography. I like to write. I like coaching. I've made jewelry. I'm very creative.

If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art.

Janie: So you're a double agent? Cabel: Sure.That sounds sexy.

What you get is what you get. What you do with what you get, that’s more the point.