“I love artists like Prince, who hold on to that element of mystery.”

I don’t try and be dark, but there are obviously darker emotions that I want to capture sometimes.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

Treasure, that is what you are.

I think I don’t take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it’s a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun.

I think that success is having fun.

Every time I try to write a song, when I sit down and think I’m going to write, I really want to write a song, and it never works out. It’s always when it hits me unexpectedly on a plane or right before I go to bed, something like that.

To write a song you must have an imagination, to have an imagination you must be free.

If I was a billionaire, I’d be smart with my money.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

Songwriters, you have to work – you have to wait for residuals. You have to pray that the song’s going to be a hit. And then a year later, you might get a check.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I’m not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

My dad was just the king of finding these little spots for us to stay that we should never have been staying at.

There will never be another Michael Jackson, a huge pop star since (the age of) 7.

When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change ’cause you’re are amazing just the way you are.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

I know I’m probably much too late to try and apologize for my mistakes.

Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their age.

I’m no longer an artist, I’m a business partner.

There are obviously so many artists that are very inspiring, but I can’t say that they like – that I have someone in mind that is like a creative direction of where I want to go as an artist. I think I’m just doing my own thing.

Mark Ryden is my favorite visual artist.

I listen to a lot of music. But I definitely haven’t looked at an artist and like thought I want to have a song like this.

I think artists are aware that talking gives a songwriter so much material. If they just tell us what’s happening, it’s so much easier for us to write a song that’s specific to them.

Just because you’re an artist doesn’t give you an excuse to be an asshole.

I want to be real. I want to be a real person. That’s what an artist is. An artist has to be honest. Without honesty, there’s nothing.