All the books on my shelves, when I would go to them to look for help with my anguish, they all just seemed so crass. They didn't get it. Those books don't understand. Nobody understands. The universe, nobody understands my agony, or my questioning, and it's this shift in what in the world around us could possibly be meaningful or helpful.

All things in the world are singing a song, reciting a poem, inaudibly, to their surroundings, to the things they encounter.

People's attentions spans are getting shorter and shorter. I don't want to cater to that necessarily but, just for myself, it feels like more than 40 minutes of music is too much.

I'm not ... pumped about being alive. But I don't think about suicide ever. I have a kid. I think that's just an automatic shut-off of that idea. In fact, I just instantly went into the necessities of parenting, and I think it's been very good for grief. Because it's a reality check, I guess. I have very real tasks that need immediate attention all the time.

A lot of my songs are about death and the fleetingness of life. It just feels good to remind myself about that a lot. For whatever reason. And it's a beautiful thing, actually. It seems to me like it's a beautiful way to live in the world and to relate to things, with an awareness of temporality.

I wanted to lift the aspects of the lyrics and imagery that I found sincerely powerful and touching, plus the amazing musical extremities, and make my own thing. That's what making music has always been for me. Synthesizing a nonexistent kind of music that I wish existed because I wanted to listen to it.

I really like looking at other people's book collections when I'm at someone's house. I think it is an amazing cross section of a person's brain and lifestyle. I think everyone should photograph their book spines and make a website. Seriously.