Songwriting is reliant on inspiration, which ideally you don't have that much control over. Songs kind of half make themselves, and then you have to finish them.

The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.

Being in a rock band, I feel a certain responsibility to have a weird haircut. I mean, who else gets to do that?

Music is made by individuals. Some artists will be very politically overt in their songs, some will be more subtle. You have to be true to yourself, true to your nature.

The idea of dancing to bad house music is something I could never get behind.

I think of hip hop as a mass media, radio, MTV thing. It’s been extremely relevant over the last 10 years and rock music is just not anymore—-a tear rolls down my cheek as I say that.

Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.

What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.

A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career.

I think filmmakers all secretly wanna be musicians and all musicians secretly wanna be filmmakers.

The film Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

To pursue happiness for its own sake is the surest way to lose it.

Fear not! The Lord will rescue and deliver you.

Maybe that was the price of loving someone: you lost your grasp of where they ended and you began.

Break an Illusion, and you open the eyes of the intelligent.

Few people know how to be old.

Neither earth nor ocean produces a creature as savage and monstrous as woman.

Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideals and principles that we have cherished are challenged.

Gretchen shrugged. "After seeing how he acted when she almost died, I'm starting to get why she's with him." Then her voice hardened. "And really, Leila. That's twice now.

The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.

Compassion is the spontaneous wisdom of the heart. It's always with us. It always has been, and always will be. When it arises in us, we've simply learned to see how strong and safe we really are.