I went right from wunderkind to washed up. Old. Been around too long. That's just the way I feel. That's my internal dialogue.

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.

It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much.

A boycott is, inherently, a blunt instrument. It is an imperfect weapon, a carpet bomb, when all involved would prefer a surgical strike.

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

It's not a movie, no private screening This method acting, well, I call that living

Sometimes I daydream about having a farm and a wife and some babies and watching the grass grow, but you have to meet the right person for that.