“It’s easy to look at the vampires as a metaphor for any feared or misunderstood group.”

We live in a time where there’s an alienation factor. There’s a certain disconnection.

I really love storytelling, and I love the stories as they reveal themselves. It’s an incredibly nourishing process; it’s probably the closest I come to having a religion.

It’s also easy to look at them as a metaphor for a shadow organization that says one thing and has a completely different agenda on their mind, and anybody who gets in their way, they just get rid of them. Does that sound familiar?

I certainly believe that what we perceive as humans is just the tip of the iceberg.

That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.

Life is suffering. We have desires and expectations and egos, and we compare the reality we have, which is miraculous and wondrous, with this reality we desire.

I felt pride, wonderful pride, when I was captain. It was an honour to take over from Labby. Anybody who has ever captained a big club, which Everton are, will tell you it’s a great honour.

I would say try to tell stories that you care about as opposed to stories that you think will sell.

For me, the thing that I love is that it’s all about the present moment.

It’s a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.

Beauty is in the strangest places. A piece of garbage floating in the wind. And that beauty exists in America. It exists everywhere. You have to develop an eye for it and be able to see it.

Makes you wonder what else you can do that you’ve forgotten about.

Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is going to cave in.

We don’t have any real sense of community anymore.

I’m from the South, so while I personally find it impossible to live there, I still have a fondness for it as a geographical region.

Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst.