There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.

When I start asking my friends, "What do you think this means?" And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like "apocryphal," for instance.

The idea of writing songs because you're depressed and you need to communicate it somehow, that isn't really true for me.

I also don't believe that "everything happens for a reason," which is in a similar category of world-views.

There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear it, and wanting to really stretch out. I think it's a healthy tension.

There's kind of this unequaled thrill of playing a half-finished song, it's kind of sense of slight embarrassment; like you're blushing. I like doing that. I did that with "Eyeoneye" and it was almost a curse on the song for a while; I debuted it when it was half-finished in a very public way

It's like you don't know you're making a record unless you're half-killing yourself.