"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.

Every new generation of smartphone just has a different-shaped button. It's embarrassing.

Have you seen this video of these cows who have been in a dairy farm, a really shitty one, their entire lives, and they're let out into a field, and they're literally jumping with joy? It's crazy. I don't have any trouble completely becoming that cow. There's no "What is it really like to be a cow?" kind of question anymore. There's no question at that moment whether I understand you completely. I think there is, in that moment, a possible total sympathy. Total sharing.

The interesting thing about doing press is that I learn what the album is about - I now know, a year later, looking back, what was on my mind at the time.

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

I feel like real thoughts and emotions involve the whole being. And they also outstrip little personal quirks, and they outstrip biography. You end up on a really special, universal, shared terrain in those experiences. I think it's available to absolutely every single thing made of flesh and blood.

As someone who listens almost exclusively to contemporary hip-hop and R&B, I definitely like "No Bullshit" by Chris Brown, and melodically I'm really into what he's doing - that song is kind of singular because it's got this piano intro and outro. But obviously I'm not singing about what he's singing about. What we want out of our songs is not the same thing.