I'm an untrained musician. Untrained musicians don't really have any music theory, they don't have a lot of rules. We break the rules, but it's mostly because we don't know what the rules are. It's easy for us to go to certain places, so I'm not surprised that a lot of people were amused by my songwriting style.

People go back to the stuff that doesn't cost a lot of money and the stuff that you don't have to hand money to over and over again. Stuff that you get for free, stuff that your older brother gives you, stuff that you can get out of the local library.

I listen to Neil Young and jazz and classical stations and, if my girlfriend's driving, it tends to be Hall & Oates.

You think you've made something really great, but there's a reason why it's not resonating the way some previous work did. But it's not that easy to just replicate. Some people think, "Oh, just go do that thing you used to do before." But it just doesn't work like that. It's a lot more mysterious or slippery.

But the truth is that critics are by definition critical. That's their job.

Wise is the tongue, wet of perfect thought.

I initially felt shy about doing painting because I wasn't a professional painter. I almost felt like I didn't deserve to paint. But I have gradually adopted a different kind of attitude about this.