I think that so many people don't understand how easy it is to be broke, how easy it is to find yourself in a situation where you're in an absolutely foreign place.

Most of the time I don't even talk about any direct lineage of songs, because I feel like it just chains them down into my own consciousness, and the whole fun of them is being able to live in others' consciousness.

When I think of my art tribe - you know, my peeps - there are certain people who are autobiographers that I really love. But for the most part, overwhelmingly, my tribes are the surrealists and the storytellers, in song and literature.

I just like being all over the place and writing whatever comes to mind. Having the tools? It's such a gift.

I don't kiss losers and I don't kiss winners, and I don't fight for honor 'cause we all are born sinners

You're part of the human fabric of experience. You don't have to have cancer to write about cancer. You don't have to have somebody close to you die to understand what death is. Definitely, the more you live, the more experiences fall into your spectrum. As a writer, you must have been told: Write about what you know. But Kafka didn't. Gogol didn't. Did Shakespeare write only what he knew? Our own selves are limitless. And our capacity for empathy is giant.

All the monsters in your mind just want to be nice. They want to be kind. They want to play nice. They want to be softer than the storms around. You feel them through the windows and the doors.