“Imitate the sun. Don’t worry if people understand you. Just shine shine shine.”

There are moments where, as a performer, you’re on stage and you feel like you’re exactly where you’re meant to be in the universe. It’s a rare and beautiful thing when it happens.

I’ve tried to make music that’s more universal, but for me, it’s most successful emotionally when it’s most specific to what I’m going through.

In the silence, hear what can’t be heard.

There’s a great expression that says, “God is a jealous lover,” and it’s a very accurate expression that has nothing to do with whatever you see god or nature as.

There are a lot of artists who have gotten pretty caught up in that. That’s why I like the defeatist attitude. Just assume that no one is going to like it and that no one cares, and you’ll end up making something that you really like.

If I feel really authentically in my body, then everything seems to click. But, sometimes I can only get into that, if the atmosphere is already conducive to that with the sound and all that stuff.

One of the biggest and most pleasant surprises is that, even when you have that need to keep up an appearance of being right or knowing, there is life after admitting you don’t know and that’s beautiful.

The moments when I first made something, like when I first wrote a song please me so intensely. Everything else after that is just the act of communication.

The moments when I first made something, like when I first wrote a song please me so intensely. Everything else after that is just the act of communication.

I like albums where all the songs are written in one go. If you’re trying to create the number-one album with the best songs ever,

I get why you’d want to write for three years and pick the best ones, but for me, I’d rather hear a group of songs that are all expressing a state, or time of your life. I think it’s more that.

As a musician or a performer, you’re meant to know what you’re about, but it’s ridiculous that someone 14 would have any idea of what they’re about.

Interviewers have to be work really hard to be good. They¹re more inclined to be bad. Generally, they can go either way, but interviewing on a whole isn¹t such a useful thing. I¹m not a big fan of (interviews), really.

I watch a lot of TV and I got some new hair products.

I’ll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Saturday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books . . . books . . . books. . . .

A candle throws its light into the darkness, in a nasty world so shines a good deed. Make sure the fortune that you seek is the fortune that you need.

Too much shine, can dull the soul

I don’t need a compass to tell me which way the wind shines !

Go make yourself a plan And be a shining light. Then make yourself a second plan, For neither will come right.

Who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining?

Look at their eyes. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it.

The most important thing will be building a bench of powerhouse progressives in elected office and in the next administration. [Bernie] Sanders has an enormous spotlight that he can shine on champions that are following the Sanders path of really building from the left.