All my big heroes are literary, writers. I'd love to meet Jimmy Hendrix or John Coltrane, but I'd much rather meet Thomas Wolfe, or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Words and books have always meant a lot to me. That someone can take words and string them together to where they will move me is just a hell of a thing. It's amazing to me; more amazing to me than music or painting. It's always been the written word or the spoken word, like a great lecture or a great lyric, or a great poem. To me it's just amazing. And I always aspire toward capturing that, or my version of it.

In my bright, utopian future world, they will hand out college educations like cups of water at the end of the L.A. Marathon.

Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.

When you're going into an employment environment that looks pretty scary, it is easy to lose your moral compass, your decency, your sense of civility and your sense of community.

I've never heard Daft Punk; I've never heard a track of theirs in my life. They're the two guys with motorcycle helmets on?

I am very ambitious in a way, in that I'm not trying to be the richest guy or whatever. I just really like my work.

Motivation has always been a fascinating factor when considering a touring artist, especially when the years stack up. What keeps one out there year after year?