I've always written songs with a visual counterpart in my mind that no one else can see.

I am still not taking my "career" in music for granted. It is constantly surprising that it works. Generally my thinking about the future has this assumption of an impending apocalypse.

It's interesting to think about the different forms one place can take.

Death is natural, and it happens early for some people. I acknowledge that, and in the next sentence, reject it, because it just sucks. It hurts. I can at the same time acknowledge it as true, and then have my protest against it.

Twitter is so stupid. I mean, it sucks! It's not a good way to communicate and it's really difficult to use it for any functional thing.

It's a beautiful idea to focus on how everything is temporary and always in flux. It may feel bad now, but it will feel good later, and vice versa. To write about those things brings this satisfying feeling as a creative person. There's a lot of music out there that's like, "I'm so mad! I'm sad! I'm into skulls and crossbones and the color black," and that's just meaningless and shallow. So much of metal is about that and it's hard to find metal that is substantial and meaningful in terms of its content.

Profound thoughts and profound experiences get revealed to be tricks that we play on ourselves, and poetry gets revealed to be just, like, some dumb words that somebody put in an interesting order.