A lot of times, magazines end up presenting me as some type of weirdo, but I make my music for everyday people.

This is what I wanted to do from the very beginning: write songs and make records and tour them with a good live band.

I read books all the time, I'm always reading. I'm not like somebody that reads really fast or a lot or anything, but I always have a book that I'm reading.

The fact that I have a lot of songs written doesn't keep me from wanting to write new ones, or new ones from coming.

I don't feel like I'm half as important as Elliott Smith or Kurt Cobain. And I'm not going to be somebody that became so unhappy that he succumbed.

There's enough adverbs in the world for you to start creating new ones.

I like the songwriting. I don't ever listen and then go back and change stuff. For me when I wrote the song, it's always really fun and exciting.

I can watch a movie about a person that can make me feel depressed or remind me of something else, and then later on I'll get an idea for a song.

I tend to like to write a song and then think about it for a while. I record a demo of it and then put it away and wait until I've gotten more thoughts on it or get sure exactly how to approach it.

I think music is a spiritual way to communicate transcendental things.

I'm not making any money, but I view it as some sort of investment, or like buying myself a great present.

Death and injury caused by armed violence is one of the most shameful epidemics of our age.

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

What could a fool be thinking but further foolishness?

The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another.

There is as far as I know, no example in history, of any state voluntarily ceding power from the centre to its constituent parts.

Young men preen. Old men scheme.

It's necessary, at some point, to destroy your beauty.

That man,' Elayne said, 'is never where he needs to be.' 'And yet,' Perrin said, 'he always arrives there eventually.

It's such a joy to be able to play someone who is angry. It's a joy and a relief. Having to be nice all the time is exhausting and boring.

I think my father would give me the Department of the Interior because of my love of the outdoors, so we can get that going.