I had a rule that I would never force the muse in my younger days. I would follow the feeling. I would just put the pen down and walk away, and wait for it to come back. But these days, I have a kid, I tour a lot, and I'm always short on time.

I miss that moment when you're about to go through the tube turn-style but you put your ticket in the wrong way and then as you're trying to figure out how exactly to get in the damn station you hear a collective sigh of 40 people behind you pissed that you're slowing down the herd.

Sold my soul to the devil / for nice penmanship. / Now I write real pretty / but I'm starting to regret it.

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.

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.

You feel the weight of the world and you take things in and you are acting out from a place of being pushed and visceral. It's heavy. You can't be there all of the time.

The idea that things used to be better is fantasy. It's putting a halo on something that no one can disprove.