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.

There's very little admirable about being a pirate. There's very little functional about a pirate. There's very little real about a pirate.

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.

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

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.

What is normally called religion is what I would tend to call music - participating in music, listening to music, making records and singing.

One thing that the Internet has created is the sense that information is at your fingertips, when it's really only a very, very limited, specific, and slanted kind of information.