Never try to do anything artistic when you're feeling something overwhelming. It's like driving a car: If you're experiencing road rage, pull over.

Serious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway.

If you start out with a song sounding like Britney Spears, and you end up with a song sounding like Pauline Oliveros, you'd better have pretty good liner notes explaining what on earth you mean.

Well, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in.

I think there is such a valid concept as "serious music," meaning that if you don't take it seriously, you don't get it all.

There's a whole kind of melancholy that you can only attain with reverb. That's an example of a technology introducing a whole new meaning.

At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't rhyme in translation.

I can imagine lyrics becoming better written by smart machines rather than stupid musicians. Songwriters generally have nothing to say. They may as well be replaced by machines.

My mother says I have boring percussion.

When you're making a singular pop song, you don't really need any subject matter. You just sort of say, "Uh, I love you." And then you try to figure out some rhyme for that, and there never is one.

I'm not too sure if I have a very smart approach to revealing my life. Luckily, I doubt if many people really care about my life that much.

NEVER BE SO BUSY BEING THE LIGHT FOR OTHERS THAT YOU NEGLECT TO SHINE ON YOURSELF

Her heart ached to be nearer him – to know that he would stay with her no matter what. She couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if he left – he’d become so necessary to her.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been.

The most efficient way to live reasonably is every morning to make a plan of one's day and every night to examine the results obtained.

I see travelling as a great learning process, and my biggest dream is to travel the world.

A man's home may seem to be his castle on the outside; inside is more often his nursery.

One is not born English without knowing how to converse easily about the weather.

Fame is a food that dead men eat, I have no stomach for such meat.

While man's desires and aspirations stir he cannot choose but err.

Only when your memories are more important to you than your goals are you old.