I had an unspoken treaty with myself to never lie in my lyrics, so, for a long time, when I wrote love songs, I would use genderless pronouns, like "dear" and "darling" - like some kind of granny!

A lot of me figuring out how to love myself more involves finding the things that I'm ashamed of and looking them right in the eye.

You become more animalistic when you don't know what's coming next - you have to be on guard, but at the same time you're also more receptive.

Someone can only be vampiric if you allow it.

There is also a particular frustration that I have with language. It's so clumsy. And the reason I'm feeling that is more because on your breathing and your intonation than the actual words.

It's very human to try to put things into boxes, and it's hard for us to reconcile with grey areas, and yet somehow that's the area I find the most poetic, the juiciest.

I try to have things change before I get bored, and I figure other people might enjoy that too; I try not to let anything repeat for long enough that you can get used to it.

I do love voices so much that I will use them and manipulate them. The presence of a human voice in a piece of music is really exciting, even if it's just someone's breathing.

With song titles, I try to keep a healthy sense of humor while saying something at the same time.

When you actually make a new friend, and you make music and laugh really hard together, that can give you a lot of confidence and nourishment and encouragement.

Only after a piece of music is done does my frontal cortex allow me to organize what might be trying to come out of my subconscious.

Stories shared in your kitchen will strengthen your family than the stories shared your bedroom

Why do more than 40 percent of Americans think that the Universe began after the domestication of the dog?

Once you learn how to think you can teach yourself anything.

The strongest man is the one who stands most alone.

It is to escape the responsibility for failure that the weak so eagerly throw themselves into grandiose undertakings.

Salt and the center of the world have to be there, in that spot on the tablecloth.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

No one can save you, no one but your very reason! Therefore, improve your reason!

I could do Superman, the Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, this kind of stuff [at school]. And kids would give me their lunch money to have these things.

Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations.