I figure it's okay to make certain rules, whether or not people despise you for it at the time.

I don't know the reasons why something is intimidating to me or disgusting to me and I don't like feeling that way, either. I don't like it when something turns me off, on any level. So, its a matter of saying: Well, I can either sit here and reject, or I can do double-time embracing of something else just to reassure myself that I'm not against the world.

At the same time, you don't want to be blindsided at some point because you've taken too much comfort from knowing nothing. So you try to keep a little store of practical knowledge. At a certain point you have to pretend that something is true in order to have a relationship with the world.

I write a song to be recorded. And to some extent to be performed, but definitely more to be recorded than performed, because the recording will last longer than a performance.

You're making something that won't be what it is until some unknown date in the future. All aspects of the personal disappear.

I do an opening in 'The Glory of the World' play at BAM, and then I go up to the high balcony in the back and watch the bulk of the play, but then I have to leave my seat about seven to 10 minutes before the end of that final big scene...and it's a bummer.

I have a mantra that kind of explains my feelings on this subject, which is, "The past is the present is the future." When you're recording something, you're making something that will exist in the future.