I never looked at music as a serious ven­ture. There was very little encouragement from my family. I didn't have anybody to entertain, so it was hard to get motivated.

She's a shiksa goddess and a trapeze artist, all of that. She can fix the truck...she's outta this world...she's bold, inventive and fearless. That's who you wanna go in the woods with, right? Somebody who finishes your sentences for you.

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.

Well it's hotter 'n blazes and all the long faces / there'll be no oasis for a dry local grazier

I didn't really want to be part of a clique or a niche. But I also was looking for my own voice, as a writer, y'know? And a world I could call my own.

The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand...

He likes a day in the studio to end, he says, "when my knees are all skinned up and my pants are wet and my hair's off to one side and I feel like I've been in the foxhole all day. I don't think comfort is good for music. It's good to come out with skinned knuckles after wrestling with something you can't see. I like it when you come home at the end of the day from recording and someone says, "What happened to your hand?" And you don't even know. When you're in that place, you can dance on a broken ankle.