Life is a series of problems to figure out how to solve gracefully and with dignity. That is what life is and I can't see it any other way.

Telling what you feel, trying to talk about what's important to you, does not make you weaker.

But I can't confront the doubts I have. I can't admit that maybe the past was bad, and so, for the sake of momentum I'm condemning the future to death so it can match the past.

I don't consider myself a great writer, but I would like to think that I can at least proof- read.

It's funny, because my last record was a lot about isolation and people living in separate worlds that other people can't even understand, which drug addiction is the perfect negative example of.

There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.

It really doesn't matter to me what people say about me anymore.

Everyone's just extracting meaning and feeling and emotion from almost every aspect of music, and I think that for me, it's a huge antidote to that to have a concept album.

When things are really great, it just means everything's in it's place.

I wanted to try to write songs on the piano to get a different flavor.

Better take the keys and drive forever. Staying won't put these futures back together. All the perfect drugs and superheroes wouldn't be enough to bring me back to zero.

If the thought inspires you, and it feels good and right...it is yours, alone, to exercise. So get right on it!

But then again...perhaps the whole human race is cursed, and I'm simply in the lower echelon and therefore lose everything first.

For many of us, the curtain has just come down on childhood.

He who prays five times a day is in the protection of God, and he who is protected by God cannot be harmed by anyone.

I never saw a player who had greater promise.

Family comes first. You're the only thing they have.

My last real job was selling air time for CBS affiliates. I quit that when I was 28, and that was the last real job I had. I beat the system. I've been able to do this full-time for almost 15 years.

Everyone knew in the 1950s why a girl from a nice family left home. The meaning of her theft of herself from her parents was clear to all - as well as what she'd be up to in that room of her own.

I'm always projecting onto objects like they're alive in some way.

That they may have a little peace, even the best dogs are compelled to snarl occasionally.