It's really hard to make something that doesn't sound like everything else.

I've always loved improvising. That's how I write songs. Creativity has an improvised element to it.

If I don't keep my music varied I go a bit stir crazy, you know? If I don't have the opportunity to jump genres every now and again I feel I'm boxed-in.

I can see that in retrospect but I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me.

It's weird how things are really stop-start in my creative process. I can't just turn it on - it just happens kind of randomly and I've just got to ride it when it's good. Surf's up! It's like that.

I feel myself developing more and more of this soul voice, and...it's a mystery to me. Fundamentally, I just think because I feel it, it's alright.

I really wanted to maintain that bedroom philosophy to creating stuff.

People can rock together, people can do great things together, and that's what you love when you're working with characters and it's all going well.

I do my best to make music spontaneously. It's very personal in a way. It's really a direct connection between me and anyone who's watching. I don't want to be in my own bubble. I'm reaching out.

I stopped going out and taking pills and I started hanging out and learning about flat eleven chords.

I'm not the kind of guy who likes to rush things through. I like to take my time and finish when I'm finished.

I have always had the greatest respect for students. There is nothing I hate more than condescension—the attitude that they are inferior to you. I always assume they have good minds.

Your future is uncertain, and I can tell you nothing that can help you. You are singular and dangerous, and so it is that you are sought by both the Dark and the Light.

Don't allow your negative situations discourage you from what you can become in the future. There is more abilities left in you than you could ever possibly imagine.

Ultimately peer pressure can lead people to bully, but peer pressure can also say bullying is not acceptable.

Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.

And I think that that emphasis on keeping a family together, alike, I think it's important.

If life gives you limes, make margaritas.

The whole film business was built on immigrants: Billy Wilder and Michael Curtiz and all these hefty lads.

I wouldn't back away from what's right just because it's hard.

Failure and setbacks and struggles are where all the good stuff happens.