I also don't like to make really big records, because I feel then that the songs don't get enough space to be themselves, so I would never want to make a record that's like seventeen songs.

You're using your headphones to drown out your mind

I'm both kinds of a person; I have a side of me that's very light and very optimistic and finds everything surreal and hilarious, and then I have a side of me that's - I don't know what the right word is - tormented or just feels very overwhelmed.

You decide if you're ready for something. It can come in the guise of, "Oh, I don't think I like this."

It's a privilege to work with an artist that you really care for.

I used to be such a militant city-ist, but more and more I've seen forests and nature and oceans, and I don't know any more if this is the awesomest way to live.

I spent the '80s in the Soviet Union and when I came to America it was '89 and I was in an immigrant bubble and we didn't have MTV or cable, so I kind of discovered the '80s when I was already older, maybe in college. And I continued to have this romantic obsession with all those films and there's this sound I hear in my head and it's kind of this bittersweet romantic, dark sound.