I think The Sunset Tree is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

You can get really good reads on your dreams if you think of every character in them as actually being you.

There are only two stories: either you go forward or you die.

Life is hard, you're tired, and there's disease. The strategy that works for children is to be delighted by the things that delight you.

People talk about songwriting or comedy as creative expression, but life is creative expression. Table-making, even nursing, is extraordinarily creative.

Good things never last, bad things never die.

One way you can get really close to God is to sin as hard as you can.

I am at a place in my life where the more like a cave I can make my surroundings, the happier I am.

I seem to get the best work when I'm angry and depressed and alienated.

It usually happens that I have multiple different projects going on at once, and one can be referencing the other.

A bands first albums usually not great. When you made the first album, you had a day job and you were still trying to be serious about it.

Parenting a pre-teen is quite something.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

We don't grow on accident, we grow on purpose.

When my opponent's clock is going I discuss general considerations in an internal dialogue with myself. When my own clock is going I analyse conctrete variations.

Politicians don't want democracy here in America, why would they want it in the Middle East?

Most economists, including me, agree that longevity insurance would make sense for a lot of people.

She [Beyonce]is probably the closest thing we've seen to Michael Jackson as far as having that determination and drive that I've ever seen.

Call it crazy, or just chicken salad.

I cannot be understood in three minutes.

I'm a tomato freak, but sometimes you have to get it in ketchup form for people to be able to open to tomatoes.