I think that most of the people I'm dealing with, they're a lot like me. So I'm not pushing people that don't want to do something; most of the people have a billion things going on, and they love it.

Love is larger than life.

The 'cool' record store. It is where you can talk to people who are like you. They look like you, think like you and, most tellingly like the same music as you - the only comparable experience these days would probably be an art museum - an actual place where you can stand and simply be surrounded by your heroes.

I call it "being interrupted by success." We had done The Soft Bulletin, which came out in 1999, and we knew we that were gonna make another record before too long. But in between this, we were still in this mode of kind of just - not re-creating what we could be, but kind of doing different things. For the longest time in the Flaming Lips we were like, "Make a record, go on tour. Come back, make another record," and you know, I think, frankly, we were kind of like, "There's more to life than just recording records and going on tour."

All the great things that I get to be curious about, see, and experience because I'm sensitive to the world, it also opens up these areas where there's a lot of pain and suffering. You're just aware, aware, aware.

A lot of times I'll doodle on something while I'm doing interviews, because sometimes I'm on the phone for three or four hours and I want to get something going. I'll just start from a scribble, or something that someone else already put on the page.

I think I'm really lucky that the things I'm able to love - people, animals - it's like the more you put yourself into it, the more you get out of it.