Every time I get up in the morning, melodies occur to me and I start trying to shape lyrics to melodies.

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.

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.

There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.

A flower has no choice in where it is planted, but does have a choice in the direction it grows.

You know, as you get older, the first thing you lose is memory. It seems to be happening with me.

It gives me vertigo to watch TV dramas.

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.

Surely, comrades, you don't want Jones back?

Some writers, rejecting the idea which science had reached, that reefs of rocks could be due in any way to "animalcules," have talked of electrical forces, the first and last appeal of ignorance.

Since Life is but a Dream, Why toil to no avail?

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own.

I don't believe in having spaces in the home that don't get used. We pay so much for square footage that to waste it is criminal.

I think as designers we realize design is a signal of intention, but it also has to occur within a world and we have to understand that world in order to imbue our designs with inherent intelligence.