I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready.

My heart and the elevator, a plummet inside a plummet.

You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all.

It was only as I wrote about fear that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We're all nerds, on one subject or another.

Writing is a necessity and often a pleasure, but at the same time, it can be a great burden and a terrible struggle.

When I write lyrics, I really do go into an automatic folk appropriation mode... I see the vernacular register of 20th century song as being a bunch of forms to adapt and reconfigure.