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

You always feel like your 18-year-old self in some sense. And that's what walking through New York on a June evening feels like - you feel like it's Friday and you're 17 years old.

While writing is a mystical process, it's also work. If you show up to work five days in a row, nobody's going to pat you on the back - everyone does that. Well, do that with your writing. Just show up. Be there for it. When you get an idea, write it down somewhere and then be a steward of that idea.

Young people like to feel self-righteous, like they're on the right side of things.

Men tend to dominate whatever public discourse they participate in, and another big part of feminism is to let women have their say. Men's voices can be welcome at the table, but there is a time and a place, and maybe it's now, for men to make a little less noise, make their needs less known, and listen to the needs of others.

I think The Sunset Tree is really the album on which I really learned to trust other musicians, which is so important.

Literature is a mystical place for me. It's not dry. It's where miracles happen.