Your ego gets activated real quick, you really want to impress yourself. But when you come back to it, sometimes you're like, "Yeah, this part? I don't know. This guy needs a lot of help."

There was no indie rock band in the 90s at the level of, like, Grizzly Bear. I listen to their records and it's crazy how good they sound. That really freaks me out.

There are bands, like R.E.M., who want to have 17 records, and some are terrible and some are great. I don't know if people think like that anymore. Things are more atomized now.

I'm a total ho for any writing workshop, any technique from anyone.

I like to write early in the morning, like, 5 a.m. If I'm really on my game, I don't have any coffee or stimulants. I'm kind of in a dream state.

I wanted to be a writer when I was a little kid. Then I wanted to be Pete Townshend - the songwriting guitarist who occasionally sang.

There's a lot of griping and groaning about wanting to play half-baked new songs live, but you don't want it to just end up on YouTube with like 74 thumbs down: "This is the worst!"

I like to go play shows just to see people, so I'm not in the game of like, "You're at my show, you're gonna listen to it like this, blah blah blah."

I saw an interview with Jay-Z where he said he didn't write down any of his lyrics, so I tried that.

I try to be patient. I feel like the point of art is to go down within yourself and to pop up into other people. If you're lucky, all of a sudden you're like, "whoop!" You're in other people.

I don't have a set working style. Some lyrics come really slow, others come in 10 minutes while I'm watching basketball. They're always a surprise to me.

The will to rise when you fall is fortitude to success.

The dust cannot fight against the wind

We are surrounded by story.

There's not much I dislike more than being addressed as "Hey you" and being poked with a finger.

Nothing dries sooner than a tear.

When I first went on tour with PJ in '98, I was still in shock having gone through the Soundgarden break up.

You wonder if God has a place for a person like you. Find your answer in the Bethlehem stable.

Someone told me it was a round thing that gobbles up money. I thought that was Tip O'Neill.

I said, God, the press and people, they just really hate me and I'm really trying. Geraldine Page said, Listen to this, Tab. If people don't like you, that's their bad taste.

If Cape wasn't your last name, what was your real one?" I asked, deathly curious now. "Ahhhh," he complained. "Pincas Huckleburr.