There's going to be ups and downs and that you have to be okay with the downs too and embrace them just as much because they will teach you something.

When you put a halo on concepts - gender roles, religion, nationality or pride - or you put a halo on any topic - anything that you hold dear like the relationship between a father and son or a mother and daughter, what it means to be married or what it means to be single or what it means to be a free spirit or what it means to be an artist - if you just put a halo on something and say it's untouchable - "that is special and that is perfect" - you immediately close your eyes to the truth of it, because the truth is that nothing is perfect.

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.

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

I think it's important to accept all the ways that we're absurdly lucky. I'm a white male from a safe city in a wealthy country.

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'm influenced in a million different ways by a million songs that I've heard and digested.