There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole new meaning.

Serious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway.

Never try to do anything artistic when you're feeling something overwhelming. It's like driving a car: If you're experiencing road rage, pull over.

If you start out with a song sounding like Britney Spears, and you end up with a song sounding like Pauline Oliveros, you'd better have pretty good liner notes explaining what on earth you mean.

Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in.

I think there is such a valid concept as "serious music," meaning that if you don't take it seriously, you don't get it all.

At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't rhyme in translation.

I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may as well be replaced by machines.

My mother says I have boring percussion.

When you're making a singular pop song, you don't really need any subject matter. You just sort of say, "Uh, I love you." And then you try to figure out some rhyme for that, and there never is one.

I'm not too sure if I have a very smart approach to revealing my life. Luckily, I doubt if many people really care about my life that much.

I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.

Be honest with who you are, what you want and how you want to be treated. Boundaries only scare off the people that were not meant to be in your life.

I was so mad, I reached into the drawer for her fake sushi eraser and put it in my pocket. Serves her right for being such a big, fat, Eggo-scarfing liar.

Whatever kind of seed is sown in a field, prepared in due season, a plant of that same kind, marked with the peculiar qualities of the seed, springs up in it.

We played at a club called, the Elbow Room. Don Carlos, the nightclub owner, was very hip and a very important person who made a big impact on my life.

As much as life can suck, it always beats the alternative.

Dear me, if men and women would only trust, understand, and help one another as my children do, what a capital place the world would be!

Southern California is a nice place, if you could cut out the show-business cancer. It just keeps spreading.

If you aren't constantly astonished at God's grace in your solitude, there's no way it can happen in public.

I am not into publicity. I'm not good at it. I get anxiety about it.