If you make everything really on the nose so everyone knows exactly what you're talking about, it's often not as strong.

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.

I feel like songwriting changed from something that I liked doing to something that, I feel, is a very important outlet for me to digest all the things around me. Once I put thoughts into a song, I can let it go, it doesn't bug me anymore you know what I mean? It's kind of a catharsis.

It doesn't matter if you're talking to a communist or a fascist if you say, do you want a good future for your kids? Well they're all going to say yes. Well do you think that money should be spent efficiently? Yes. Al of these things, everyone agrees on them but the way that we discuss them and the language that we use we hold different definitions for.

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.

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 can predict with some sense of certainty how life will feel in a month. I can with the same logic remember with the same element of reality or truth what life was like a month ago. All perspectives on the past are entirely relative.