The fact that somebody's telling you a story about people who didn't exist doesn't make the experience of the story any less real in your heart and mind.

I still get really excited looking at stuff that I've seen every day for 20 years.

It makes me envious of anybody who can say truly that they don't care what anybody thinks of what they do, because I care a lot about the people who like my stuff.

I'm not really a goal-oriented guy. I started doing the Mountain Goats just for the sheer hell of it.

There are stylists I really love. I'm a huge Joan Didion fan - if I wrote something that she might like, then I'd feel very proud. I want the action to move as quickly as it does in A Book of Common Prayer, where one thing bonks right into another very quickly.

As important as politics are to me, the life and the spirit of people's emotions are much more important. People live real lives where they love and grieve and feel pain and joy and that is a whole separate sphere. All that political stuff, I believe in it strongly, but not as strongly as I believe that at some point you or someone is going to need a song to sit with and comfort them in a hard time.

People say friends don't destroy one another. What do they know about friends?