I write music, really, to make myself feel better.

Maybe love won't let you down. All of your failures are training grounds and just as your back's turned, you'll be surprised... as your solitude subsides.

I think life is the most important thing and you have to live that first and then you're art comes second.

I think you kind of lose the human aspect when you make things too perfect.

As hard as I try to sound tough and dark, I still sound cute.

I'm a control freak with regards to certain aspects. I think you just have to be when you're making stuff in the world. You have to have a clear idea what you want.

Whenever I have a bunch of tunes written, I always find a kind of uniform that accompanies the songs.

I tend to work well within a deadline. If I know I have to get something in three weeks, I tend to A, enjoy myself a little bit more, and B, really work well.

If you wanna get to heaven, get out of this world.

I grew up on Loretta Lynn and Dusty Springfield. I remember lying about it it wasn't cool to listen to country when I was 12.

I am a child of digital generation. I have done most of the records with Rilo Kiley on computers, on Pro Tools or other digital programs.

Pity, I've learned, is like a fart. You can tolerate your own, but you simply can't stand anyone else's.

femelu could not understand this, her mother’s ability to tell herself stories about her reality that did not even resemble her reality

Every day we’re given opportunities, some of us see them and some are too busy to notice.

To run this business ... you need ... optimism, humanism, enthusiasm, intuition, curiosity, love, humour, magic and fun, and that secret ingredient-euph oria.

Obviously any group that has to have funding also needs to get attention to their issues.

Psychologically speaking, one may say that the hypocrite is too ambitious; not only does he want to appear virtuous before others, he wants to convince himself.

The fact that that's the difference between Mexicans and Cubans is pronounced. It's so immediately recognizable, the way a Cuban speaks, the way a Cuban moves the hands.

Wal-Mart hires average people but squeezes above average performance and results out of them.

There is a great difference between mind and body insomuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible.

Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.