Somebody curse the light And take me far away from myself

I really need to know I may just never see you again, or might as well You took advantage of a world that loved you well I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down I'm so tired of you, America.

As an artist, you put so much into what you do and it can all be torn down in a nanosecond.

The moment something happens to one you love, it's twenty times more intense. You experience pain and enlightenment on a much vaster scale.

I've developed a bit of a fascination with John Denver. I always thought he was kind of tacky and somewhat revolting and had a kind of simplistic weirdness, but on second listen, he actually did have an incredible voice, and the blatant naiveté of his work is straight-edge, in a way.

Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.

When it came to using elements of your personal life in your work, my mother was the master, or the mistress. There were three or four songs she wrote about my father - songs about failed love.