Music is made by individuals. Some artists will be very politically overt in their songs, some will be more subtle. You have to be true to yourself, true to your nature.

The Flaming Lips have been on Warner Bros. forever, and certainly everything I heard growing up was on a major label in some way, from the Cure to Radiohead to Bjork.

Being in a rock band, I feel a certain responsibility to have a weird haircut. I mean, who else gets to do that?

The idea of dancing to bad house music is something I could never get behind.

I think of hip hop as a mass media, radio, MTV thing. It’s been extremely relevant over the last 10 years and rock music is just not anymore—-a tear rolls down my cheek as I say that.

Whenever you do anything or say anything, you're opening yourself up to criticism. But that's okay.

What I miss [about church] is being forced to be in community with people that aren't the same as me.

A lot of artists write about the same things their whole career.

I think filmmakers all secretly wanna be musicians and all musicians secretly wanna be filmmakers.

The film Black Orpheus is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

I don't think the emotional quality is the defining quality of the music but it's definitely something that people have picked up on a lot

God has implicit confidence in you

like traveling without knowing what country you’re going to

Cause sometimes it's hard to let the future begin!

Do you think that the Lord gave them to me for a decoration?

I remember as a kid being cold a lot, and hungry sometimes. Wed go to bed with just cornbread and milk, and I remember wearing shoes with holes in the bottom. I remember having twine for shoestrings.

I'm a hypocrite, of course, and I live with that, but I live.

Do fewer things and do them well. Focus on the things only you can do. Do the important things which must be done now.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.