If you use language that divides people and makes people who agree with you really stoked and people who disagree with you disengaged then you're preaching to a choir, and you've lost any kind of relativity across the spectrum. So it's important to be subtle and understand that there's a lot more you can learn.

I think books are just a great ticket to get you outside of yourself. You can not be you for a second and live in the shoes of a character, which is a special thing.

I think that's why art prevails: because it helps people in a fairly intangible, magical way feel more connected to each other.

Sometimes I just don't have time to wait for the muse to come, so I've developed things to force the muse to come back.

What frustrated us about the song [Robots] was not that it existed - we owe a lot to that song and have had a ton of fun playing it. The problem was that it was a "given".It was like everyone was waiting for it to happen, and then it better be as crazy as the time they saw it before. Started to feel like dancing monkeys.

The most rewarding possible thing that a songwriter or an artist of any kind can experience is to hear firsthand from the mouth of somebody else that they don't know the weight or gravity or intensity that something they've made has brought out in somebody else's life. It's simultaneously flattering and humbling. It makes me so thankful that I've been so lucky to be able to do this work.

I think the future and the past are equally hypothetical.