I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world.

There are real teachers out there; I don't pretend to have their mantle.

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

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

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.

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.

Music is a permanent art, it will always go through phases where you like it and are in tune with it, but saying that music "got bad" is infantile. The same is true with your life.