Guns are part of the American identity.

People who keep a large snake in their apartment building, which happens quite a bit, all of a sudden, within two summers, have a 14-foot animal that's eating adult rabbits, and needs quite a bit of room and quite a bit of heat. That's the animal that gets put in the back of a pick-up truck and dumped into the Florida Everglades or the city lake, or just left on a doorstep - again, it's quite often the animal that suffers.

It's always been impressive to me when someone can really do what they want onstage. The audience has confidence in the performer and the performer has confidence in the crowd.

I come from a town of great musicians: Washington, D.C. It's no joke, that history.

There's something about being under-rested and knowing that the situation is going to remain that way for quite some time that makes things more meaningful.

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

Nietzsche, who you don't spend too much time with after the age of seventeen, did have that one great line about "he who stares into the abyss must know that the abyss also stares into him" and I never really understood that until my friend got killed and you really get your head around the idea of what horror means. It's a truly awful thing, to really, kind of have that understanding of things and when you really peer into that.