I love lots of different types of music, but it's music that has this up-swelling of beauty and emotion that is most important to me.

That is not all I need. I need dogs. A house filled with dogs and a smart, funny, kind, loving girlfriend or wife.

You can sit down with Reason or Ableton and literally in a couple of hours make a very good-sounding record. But then a lot of people become contented with that, rather than pushing themselves to making something that sounds great.

For me my biggest inspiration is trying to make music that effects me as much as the music made by my heroes.

By being vulnerable, either with yourself or in the presence of another person, that’s where all growth and ultimate well-being comes from.

A lot of my friends who grew up in Manhattan have a strange phobia about Brooklyn. It's big and scary and they get lost.

If I'm walking down the street and someone stops me and says, "Oh! A song that you wrote meant a lot to me, and I listened to it after I went to my sister's funeral," that's when it hits me.