Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.

I've done my share of busking, and it's fun until it isn't. There are musicians in the subways that will make you cry, they're so good.

I have some irrepressible pop impulses to write an appealing, concise song. And I also have some irrepressible kind of restlessness as well, and I need to keep myself interested. When I'm left to my own devices, there's a struggle.

What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out.

The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.

I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.

Melodies are just honest. They can only be what they are. Words have the capacity for deception. Theyre all full of subtext, and some of them are cliche and overused and vernacular. Theyre tricky. All I can say is, words are tricky.