When I start writing songs, and they come easily, I'm always very suspicious. That usually means they're reminding me of something I've already done before. When the songs become unsettling, and I feel anxious about what I'm doing, that usually means it's going to be more interesting later on when we actually record the stuff.

Some people, myself in particular, have an adversarial relationship with the camera, and it sprouts up in every photograph.

I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

Sometimes the song isn't strong enough to contain the fiction, because memories are fictions.

No wonder sorrow doesn’t smile much. No wonder sadness is so sad.

There are times when I think I can sing it better, but usually I find that I can't.

That's what we [outsiders] feel America is really about - the kind of crazed ravings of the Christian right - when it's probably something quite different.