We almost need to cultivate - I hate to sound New Age-y - but to cultivate a positive bias, and really work to focus on those things and notice those things that are wonderful and uplifting.

At the risk of sounding pedestrian, I'll be completely honest: the first thing I do in the morning is check Google News, partially because it seems sort of random and unbiased and partially because I tend to stay in hotels that don't necessarily have the fastest Internet connections.

I have to say that being a vegan in 1986 or whenever was a lot different than being a vegan in 2012. You'd go to health foods stores and basically your choice was between Mung beans and nutritional yeast, and that's about it.

The moment a career is on a quantitative downswing, your loathsomeness is sort of attenuated.

There's something about the human brain, that it actually has a predilection towards negativity, which served us really well when we lived in an environment that was very threatening.

I just want to try - on a daily basis keep trying - to make music that I really love.

If you make a record, you should ask yourself, 'Did it make someone cry, in a good way, not a bad way?' There should almost be subjective emotional criteria for evaluating work, instead of just profitability.