I cut my bow from the wood of this tree of evil. Of this tree of good, I want a kiss from your lips.

I always write with an audience in mind. If I feel that [connection] coming back at me then I feel like I'm doing my job. That's why people come to my music - for some emotional experience or a perspective, either on their own lives, or on the world that they're living in.

I want a thousand guitars . . .

I think that is what film and art and music do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.

For me, I was somebody who was a smart young guy who didn't do very well in school. The basic system of education, I didn't fit in; my intelligence was elsewhere.

Did God make man in a breath of holy fire, or did he crawl on up out of the muck and mire?

Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.