Playing live is so weird because I go out there and I try so hard to give something, which will be recognized. And in turn, something will be given to me, there'll be some kind of shared moment in that. So it's very affectively intense - so much longing and lack of control.

Every time I think that I've pierced through the simulation, every time I feel like I've written something authentic, it feels like I then sort of lose my footing with it.

What I'm confessing is that I've grown to a point where I feel like I should have more answers, and I don't. And I still think that applies in the George Saunders stuff.

I believe, and this is something I also learned from Alice Munro, that there's a moment where the personal becomes totally universal. When you see that person in their pathetic moment, that's the moment where the completely unifying sympathy with that person is possible - where you're no longer a person here and they're someone over there, and you can really feel like one, you can really feel like a human being. Or more like, you can really feel like flesh and blood, because I feel like that moment is the same thing with animals.

I'm cool with being the sad guy, but I don't want to be the guy who nobody wants around because he's so miserable.

"Face Again" is actually the most George Saunders-y song. Basically the verses, I'm describing a world where love is being killed, and then in the first chorus, I'm sort of protesting it. It's like, "I don't think you know what's best for me." And then by the end, it's like I've given in, and it becomes very desperate.

It's hard to see how much of our social fabric is made up of a radical refusal to love people.