When our world falls apart and we have no more faces to wear - that’s when it’s beautiful, and that’s when we change.

The easiest thing to do is throw a rock. It's a lot harder to create a stained glass window. I used to get upset at the people who threw rocks but now I'd rather spend my time building the stained glass windows.

The kingdom of heaven is comprised of the broken, the fatherless, the poor, the starving. Nothing that could create good ratings for NBC.

For me, when I think about Christ, I think about this iconoclastic man who lived and died for the broken. And the paramount underdog, which is basically turning the world on it’s head. Blessed are the poor and blessed are the hungry, blessed are the broken, all these things that feel very backwards in our fame, power, beauty, riches hungry world. That’s who Christ is to me.

I use to think that the friction was a bad thing. Everything is to ease pain in our society; pain is very much the enemy. And I don't think that's true. Tension is a good thing. To be pulled tight: that's the only way you can make a proper noise on the guitar or violin.

Most of the time a spark of beauty or truth will start a fire of a song but fires rarely produce goodness on their own ... you need to control them and put them to work.

I'm continually wrestling with the idea that there are certain things in this world that simply don't fit. The idea that I have this longing for beauty and truth, and yet I'm also attracted to things that are very dark the lies that exist within me and outside of me.