I love playing in front of people. I feel powerful, 'cause I don't have to really say anything - I'm just singing.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

Every song brings back memories, like I remember where I wrote all these songs. 'Universal Heartbeat' was my apartment in New York City. 'My Sister' was at my apartment in Boston. I remember places and I remember what I was thinking when I wrote it.

I finished 'Beautiful Creature,' and I felt somewhat unfulfilled. I felt like this other side of me needed to be released. Some of the songs I left off the album weren't intense enough to be what I wanted. They weren't hard enough.

I feel some kind of duty to be really, really honest as a writer. The same is true of my songwriting.

I listen to NPR and baseball games when I'm in my car. I mean, exclusively NPR and baseball games, and that's it, as far as the radio.

I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing.