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.

I'm so disconnected from an indie-rock community that I am the hermit people used to guess I was.

Books are like rocks. You hold one in your hand and look at it in various lights to get a sense of it, and then when you get a good angle, you throw it through a window to see what happens.

Back in the 90s, if you did mail order in music, you could make a good living doing it if you could hustle.

The reality of having a kid involves day-to-day practicality - not broader philosophical outlooks.

People involved in my personal life make fun of me a lot for not being jaded.

I don't write my own publicity materials, I just read 'em and give 'em the OK.