When I came back to America, I realized that world music is no joke, it really has a lot to it.

It was funny to just take a backseat and be like, 'Wow, I might be in this crazy place, but maybe I don't need to understand everything, maybe I don't need to be someone else.'

The more I know, the more I realise I don't know. And the more I realise I'll never truly understand.

You always know when a real inspiration is behind the melody, arrangements, even lyrics. And I know that's really vague, but it's true.

Raucous drunken trumpets and instrumentation tend to guide the way you think. They can give you a path to follow lyrically.

As a teenager and a young adult, I never felt like my own story was interesting enough to tell, so I always wrote lyrics from someone else's perspective - told someone else's story.

My dad is obsessed with music, so I was raised around this guitar player that really wanted me to be a guitar player.

I think that sonically, music speaks volumes more than words do, and I have always thought that and will continue to think that for the rest of my life.

I'm sure that's every adolescent's complaint about their home town. When a city is unstimulating, you get pretty isolated.

I want a song that raises the hair on the back of my neck when I sing it live and I want to feel it every time.

I feel like I've met most people I look up to musically. I just want to meet Chef.

At some point you have to forget about grudges because they only hurt.

If you put yourself in a group of people you cannot work with it's obviously going to be a disaster.

I'm definitely not non-chalant. I have to leave nonchalant at home when I'm working on something, otherwise I just don't feel like I'm committed, and I've gotta be fully committed.

Just start writing and you'll find what you want to say.

People know what I'm doing.

I think I am a rare breed, a homosexual who doesn't like men.

Don't think about things, just do them; don't predict them, just make them.

If a wise man behaves prudently, how can he be overcome by his enemies? Even a single man, by right action, can overcome a host of foes.

Motion is the sign of life.

The Lord has a plan. We always think the plans are A, B, C and D, and everything is going to be perfect for us and it may not be that way, but it's still His plan.