I remember a time when I would hear a band and then want to hear everything that sounded like it; I wanted it to feel like I was tapping into a thing, even if it wasn't.

You should always choose your associations wisely because people create impressions around the music.

There's something really fun and spooky about that teenage feeling of narcissism or indestructibility, like the idea that every night might be the night before the world ends.

You can't always just put color filters in 80s aerobic videos or take stuff from public-access and look at it in this very ironic, self-conscious way. That only takes you so far.

Is my music indicative of a caffeine-surged green liquid? Probably not.

We really are living in the era that all this sci-fi literature and cinema was centered around, but it's not anything like what we envisioned it to be. It's almost like there's too much choice.

You really need to stop Googling yourself and start being an artist.

I think the Internet has a way of coaching you into this state of mind where you think that every step you make needs to completely supersede the last.

I never willfully want to write the same record twice, which is probably why I jump from project to project. But I can't ignore that there are things that inspire me, and I love celebrating those.

I think it's more about trying to just focus exclusively on writing music and making that a viable, sustainable lifestyle. It's difficult because it forces you to really get creative.

There's a very distinct difference between a really wonderful DIY label and a soft drink company, or a car company, or a clothing brand, and you will always understand that difference.

Similarly, anyone who wishes to understand the mind of the sacred writers must first cleanse his own life, and approach the saints by copying their deeds.

Remember that the biggest thing you could do today is a small act of kindness.

Without ... the creative imagination rushing in where bureaucratic angels fear to tread - without this, life is a mockery and a disgrace.

The Phantom, as well as being backed up by that music, it just so was a role that I identified with so powerfully. From the first second that I walked on to perform.

We are going to make sure that America is open to legal immigration because that is wealth and the talent and the entrepreneurial skills for the 21st Century.

The goal of education should be to dismantle the Middle Pole view, not to reinforce it in the name of the need for a grounding in one's own civilisation.

You really can't function as a celebrity. Entertainers are celebrities. I'm an architect. I'm an artist. I make things.

If something sticks around long enough that it makes it to seasonal D.V.D. release, I'll watch it. That's how I watched 'The Sopranos'.

My parents are both scientists, and I was raised without god.