I think the only thing that we even have a small tangent of reality or truth about is right now - the moment that is happening right this second. Everything else is up for grabs.

To say, "It used to be better," nobody can say, "Well, no it wasn't." It's like telling a story that is self-aggrandizing about someone who has passed away, when they can't tell the other side of the story.

More than anything, being an English major made me more appreciative of authors and what an incredible feat it is to just finish a novel, let alone a really brilliant one.

With all of the people in the world and all of the suffering and all of the things that people are forced to do for lack of other alternative, the fact that I had a subsidized education and got to go right into a life of playing music for a living, what a stupidly fortunate place to be.

There's when a phrase circles in my head in a number of ways for any number of days, weeks, or months, and then that eventually becomes a song. There's a slow permeation of the idea and then that leads into a bunch of themes and becomes a bunch of lines.

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.

I don't necessarily think I look to books for ideas, but sometimes when I'm in the process of reading a great book, I just think about it all of the time.