There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.

Sadness is a very interesting idea, this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness, and the idea that sadness is very loud, and happiness is quiet.

Relationships can be about yourself, they can be about you and your god, you and your people, you and your family. It can be about a lot of different stuff. And it is.

If you don't mark your successes, the day your ship comes in could be just another day at the office, and there's no poetry in that.

Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown.

I absolutely adore the alchemy of a bit of an idea.

If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. So you're in Chicago. If you stand on the corner of Belmont and Clark, and you do that for three years, you'll pretty much have seen everybody in Chicago pass that junction.