When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.

If everything really does get better, the way everyone claims, then happiness should be graphable. But that's crap, because better isn't quantifiable.

When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging.

The funny thing about gold is how quickly it can tarnish.

Sometimes I think that everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, that the people buying milk in their pajamas or picking their noses at stoplights could be only moments away from disaster. That everyone's life, no matter how unremarkable, has a moment when it will become extraordinary - a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen.

I always felt like I could combine good pop songs that are easy for people to like with a real person and a real mind and integrity.

I wondered what things what things became when you no longer needed them, and I wondered what the future would hold once we'd gotten past our personal tragedies and proven them ultimately survivable.