Life tears at us and scars us as children so we adopt facades and masks to hide this part of us, to keep this sacred part of ourselves from the pain.

The shadow proves the sunshine.

I’m really only responsible to make sure that one person is clapping at the end of my life. Because I feel like as a performer, a lot of times you live for everyone else’s applause. That’s a dangerous thing within the church or outside the church.

I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.

Being a creator of a song I get to take all these broken fragments of failure and chaos and weave together something beautiful and meaningful. Decay. Death. Pain. Fall. And if God is a songwriter then these fallen leaves of mine can be redeemed

I think sometimes we can use spirituality as a vehicle to go closer to the things that frighten us and sometimes we can use it as a shield. I'm guilty of it too. I think spiritual words can do one or the other. Because when I hear people say, in a religion setting, 'Glory,' 'Praise the Lord,' 'Hallelujah,' but it doesn't mean anything, those are actually words that distance us from God, ironically enough.

Usually for me, the melodic structures come out in the water and the lyrical ideas could come from a book I'm reading.