I had to let myself imagine a calendar with no lines; when every single day is being predetermined six months in advance, there's no more fluidity to time.

I just went to Europe, spent a year traveling, and then I came home with a finished album and said, "Hey everyone I'm back!" I gave everyone their lighters from Luxembourg, gave them the postcards from Italy and Rome, then said, "Hey look, I made a record, too" and played it for them. The general reaction was shock, because it was so different from what they've known me to do.

I love storms and how the whole house shakes. When I was a kid, there would be lots of thunder and lightning storms, and they would knock the electricity out. We had this oil lantern that had been in my grandfather's homestead at the turn of the century, before there even was electricity. He'd bring it down off the top shelf, and we'd always play cards.

No matter who weaves in and out of your life, regardless of the quality of those deep friendships and familyships, I'm the only common denominator at this point who's been with me the whole time. And there's this sense of trying to make sense of that ultimate solitude. It's not a negative or even a positive. It's just a fact.

Songwriting is a really fortunate skill to have to frame living and to find new ways to observe things you're going through.

If you keep bashing your head against the same wall, at some point you're going to fall over and be still for awhile.

I find it pretty fascinating how humans keep gravitating towards these giant centers. I went to this walled medieval village in France this year, and it was truly the most crazy, beautiful, bizarre place I've ever been.