I like my solitude, and I'm a strong-willed person; I'm a very hard-to-be-around person sometimes, I guess.

I read a lot - surveys of vernacular music. A lot of it is the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, which I've loved since I was in high school. They had it at the library and I always thought that was interesting, even when I was into punk and stuff. Just the history of storytelling and the amount of melancholy a lot of old music has.

People say 'I don't want to die alone!' But you know what, honestly? I don't want to die with a bunch of people looking at me.

I always write the first and last song of an album first, and then the middle just kind of happens.

I've got this thing where I always kind of diss the older stuff and favor the newer stuff. I mean, it's not just my thing; every artist or musician is like that, I guess.

I have really low self-esteem, and it's not easy for me to put myself on an album cover.

We didn't have MTV, and I was desperate for something. You know, you're young, you want something off the beaten path. And Twin Peaks was like, surrealism on network TV.