What you see with your eyes when you're making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.

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.

Don’t make your job your assignment. Rather, make your life assignment your career and job

How very wet this water is.

Stories are life, " protested Pico. "Without them, books would be only paper and ink, with them they breathe, the reader is drawn in, the stories become him.

Sometimes, all it takes is one arm wrap-round. And a heart’s home.

I've always shown up, always been prepared. Everything I do comes back to the example I want to set.

A God all mercy is a God unjust.

Not everyone, the Collector was aware, is improved by the job he does in life; some people are visibly disimproved.

But I guessed she would never stop wanting more for me, more from me. Maybe that's what mothers did.

People hear the soul, black influence in my voice. I grew up listening to CKLW and all the black stations like WLBS.