It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing.

I figured, 'If I ever get offered a chance to sign a deal, I'll only do it if I got to do it how I want.' So my contract is structured in such a way that I'm really protected.

I would really hate it if I could call up Kafka or Hemingway or Salinger and any question I could throw at them they would have an answer. That's the magic when you read or hear something wonderful - there's no one that has all the answers.

I remember somebody handed me Siddhartha when I was I think 18, and I started to read it and I just really didn't like it, and I left it and it was just gathering dust for years. Then maybe five years later, the world shook as I read it.

As you get older as an animal on the planet, you want to get a little more comfortable, you want to get cozier.

Even if you're an observer of a story that you yourself made up, you're still very much connected to it. You love it and feel it, no less than somebody's who's writing from their direct 'I' or 'me.' I'm just so much more interesting in stories than confessions.

I am very close with my parents, they are very amazing, so loving, so cool, and really valued art.