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

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.

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,

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

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.

[People] had never heard about someone giving something away every time they sold something.

Sometimes you work with somebody you’ve never heard of because you just feel like working.

I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing them.

I dropped out in ’64. And I came back to Michigan, in ’65. In 1965, when I came back I had never heard of Vietnam.

I do know the older I get, the more I’m referencing music I heard as a kid.

I once heard a man say he knew there was a God, he just didn’t think he needed Him. It is nice to take care of yourself and be independent, but it is also nice to know that you have a resource to rely on in times of need.

I do understand that you can look into someone’s eyes,” I heard myself saying, “and suddenly know that life will be impossible without them.

I’d never heard anything like the way he played-not in Chicago, no place. The tone-he had this wonderful, ringing cornet tone. He could have played in a symphony orchestra with that tone. But also the intervals he played, the figures-whatever the hell he did.