I don't listen to much rap, really. I can rarely listen to a whole record of it, because musically, it's very formulaic, and oftentimes it doesn't have the best hooks on every track. I like my music to be very musical.

I think people at most record labels really like music, but it's hard because everything is so subjective, and everyone's so creative in their own right.

I was never pop-music taken seriously when I was taught. But some people who agree with you will like your music, and some who don't agree with you will like your music. I think that if you can approach things in a universal fashion and speak rationally about things, then most people do have similar intrinsic values. They don't - or at least they feel that they shouldn't - want other people to suffer. They want a good life for them and their own.

In the hierarchy of instruments, if you're a harpist, you're considered someone with a brain much more than if you're a singer.

In New York City, when they develop something, they never use the old buildings. It's so wasteful. Why not use what's there?

Music can make the cerebral accessible, the subconscious hummable. It communicates our shared needs and desires as sentient beings better than any other medium.

I got sent off to my grandmother's for five months and watched a lot of TV and had a lot of grilled cheese with butter on it - because she was English and put lots of butter on everything - and yogurt. The English are big on dairy products, you know? I'd have an earache, and she'd be like, "Here, have some milk." Wonderful woman, but she had kind of screwed-up nutrition ideas.