Music was my friend when I was a teenager, and I would inhabit and take comfort in lyrics. That's how I want to write.

I never want to listen to the songs in front of people close to me. There's an emotional honesty in that place where it's not earnest but it's vulnerable.

I'm definitely preoccupied by thinking I'm just a biological thing. I want to feel that there's more, but so often I'm reminded of how we're just like baboons, basically.

I started growing roses. I enjoyed the craft of it and that they're difficult to look after; they can provide joy.

I like the fervor of religious music, the zealous aspect - that preachers can go from a conversational cadence into this passionate singing.

When you're making an album with people who made your favorite records as a rebellious teenager, it feels like you've achieved something.

You can get into a comfort zone writing lyrics, like wearing a mask. But I wanted to feel uncomfortable when I was listening back to the lyrics; I wanted to squirm.

I like simple writing. I'd rather read Hemingway than Burroughs.

I was definitely inspired by gospel music, or old-school R&B I got into some Good God gospel compilations.

I'm just worn down and weary of bands whose lyrics are cryptic and self-referential.

I'm appalled by the tendency of some rock records to perfect everything to the point where it sounds like Botox and polish it so heavily that there's no humanity left in it.

Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream?

Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, I'd like to study piano.

Though my verse but roam the air And murmur in the trees, You may discern a purpose there, As in music of the bees.

Don't underestimate the power of events that happened a long time ago. That is the tragic flaw of modern man.

I'm very comfortable in the U.S. and Europe, but I feel completely out of place in the rest of the world, mostly because I never spent time outside the U.S. and Europe until I was in my 30s.

I knew that I would speak in the language of the vanquished No more durable than old customs, family rituals, Christmas tinsel, and once a year the hilarity of carols.

Comedy - and I say this with humility - comedy needs me.

I liked myths. They weren't adult stories and they weren't children's stories. They were better than that. They just were.

The Killing Fields, my character's teachings frame the movie and the argument of his lectures is the challenge of dealing with the painfulness of life in the absence of faith.

My aunt used to call me light bulb head because my head is small at the bottom and bigger at the top. But it was a term of endearment.