There is something comforting about going into a practice room, putting your sheet music on a stand and playing Bach over and over again.

I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.

I think I'm still a little too intense for my own good sometimes.

Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

I guess I'm attracted to more archaic words because they can be imbued with more meaning, because their definition is elusive.

My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.

Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.

All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.

I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.

I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.

The conductor must breathe life into the score. It is you and you alone who must expose it to the understanding, reveal the hidden jewel to the sun at the most flattering angles.

I don't think there's anything divisive about me.

Fiscally I'm very conservative ... others say that I'm socially moderate.

I don't follow what everybody else does.

Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.

I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

I have a great desire to make people smile - not laugh. Laughter is too aggressive. People bare their teeth.

It is only the intellectually lost who ever argue.

Great men always have dogs.