I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.

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.

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.

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.

A noble minded person is not an implement.

The power of imagination is a miracle.

Too often, we see people who are prevented from practicing their religion because of a government mandate.

I am the same person I was before receiving the Nobel Prize. I work with the same regularity, I have not modified my habits, I have the same friends.

Usually I work with a digital camera and compose my works digitally or give them a finish on the computer, in order to make them meet my ideas perfectly.

It's not what you can do, but the way you do it that counts.

What my daughter does is my own responsibility, the way she represents herself.

You can have diabetes and have a piece of cake. You cannot have diabetes and eat a whole cake.

My brother and Lauren are very close with me and they are in Sun Valley, so sometimes I need to go there and feel their presence. And there are times I need to see my bro' alone.

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.