I like the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park. I love how it's been rained on forever and looks worn down by time.

Everything must belong somewhere. I know that now, that's why I'm staying here.

On good days, I can see the inherent goodness in people, and that human beings have a high capacity to learn and adapt. But things like the environment, nuclear weapons and ideas like peak oil - if you think about them too much, they can really freak you out.

Life is always surprising to me. When you think it's going to get dull, it never really does.

I think there's a danger, for me at least, in retreating and going inward and depression. I have to stay diligent against that tendency.

The world's become a little too mean.

All those experiences were a chance to learn more about music. Playing with the Valley band is like such a "live" band. I mean, really, in many ways Bright Eyes is really a studio project. We form bands to tour, but it really is - you know, we take the songs and we figure out how to decorate them and it's all in the studio, we build the songs that way. Whereas Mystic Valley Band was the exact opposite, where everybody knows what they are gonna be playing on the song and there's sort of a general stylistic approach, and then it's just plug in and play.