Coming from a working-class background, where my father did manual labor, was a good grounding; I was obsessed with getting a job or getting out of the house at 15.

If people can finally recognize you on radio without being told who it is, thats what you aim for.

I had a feeling about what I wanted to say, and I wasn't really qualified to discuss real things out of America because I didn't grow up there.

I seem to attract and be attracted to very willful, fascinating people.

I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.

Growing up in public is a test, and not many people know how to do it.

Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and Ive been a guitar junkie ever since.

Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.

I never took fans for granted. I always assumed subconsciously that people who followed what I did were just people who were kind of like me.

The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.

Now chart music is a genre all of its own and it's slipped away from what I understand pop music as. It's pretty difficult to take; it clogs up the airwaves.

Just because you’re allowed to use magic now you don’t have to whip your wands out for every tiny little thing!

Never restart a journey and use the same road that failed you before.

Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.

When it gets into these spikes, with shortages and uproar and so forth, people go bananas, but that's capitalism.

I've always had a love for horses since I was really young. When I was 5 years old, the only thing that made me happy was when they'd take me out and give me pony rides.

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science.

Writing does not resurrect. It buries.

All god wants us to do is do what he asks us to do.

In order to like someone you don't necessarily need to agree with them. It's part of our nature to want to connect.

Builders, raise the ceiling high, Raise the dome into the sky, Hear the wedding song! For the happy groom is near, Tall as Mars, and statelier, Hear the wedding song!