“I didn’t even write the lyrics down. I got in the booth, I put down a little guitar riff and the idea I had was it was going to be really simple, I just want it to be all about the lyrics and I just literally sang the lyrics.”

We want to give kids something to hope for. If one kid says, “Your cd helped get me through this year,” that’s all it takes.

3 years ago I was stocking shelves at Target, living on Ramen noodles, and crashing at Billy’s house. Now I’m on tour

In music industry they always want you to write something like the one that was popular. And that’s something you kind of have to just – sometimes you just say yes to people, like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure,” and then you just write the one you want to write.

I need a little criticism while I make a record so that I kind of feel like: okay, I know that I’m doing the best that I can do because someone is actually here challenging it.

Things have changed. I almost feel like it’s more adaptable, and you can decide your own career now. I feel artists have so much more of a voice and so much more power now. It’s really inspiring to see how a lot of the young artists use their platforms.

Start enjoying the things you like about yourself, and if there are things you want to change, either get to work on it or get over it.

A lot of bands don’t really like each other. I read an Interpol interview the other day, it was a really good interview because it was showing a different aspect of a band.

I got a little tattoo on my face, I’ll never be able to work another real job so I consider that to be kinda forcing myself to stick to music.

The whole time you’re bouncing ideas off each other, you continue to try and push the songs as far as you can take them and make them the best that they can be.

I hope my allergies don’t act up

All the best songs are, I think, the easiest write because they just come out.

There are some people i’d take a bullet for, and some people i’d like to put a bullet in.

In fact, most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology.

I’ve always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it’s the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia’s passion to get lost in a faraway place.

There is nothing simple or dull in achieving the transparent page. Vulgar ostentation is twice as easy as discipline.

Philosophers often think all scientists must be scientific realists. If you ask a simple question like “Are electrons real?” the answer will be “Yes”. But if your questions are less superficial, for example whether some well-known scientist was a good scientist.

I’m touched, rixon. A bomb. How elaborate. Why didn’t you keep things simple and just march inside my bedroom one night and put a bullet between my eyes?” nora, crescendo

Science is triumphant with far-ranging success, but its triumph is somehow clouded by growing difficulties in providing for the simple necessities of human life on earth.

You miss the simple things. But when you look at the big picture we get to see a crazy amount of cities and the people we get to meet, all over the world it kind of makes up for it.

The romantic craved seeing if the quirkiness of the sport – there is after all, little practical value to oarsmanship in the postindustrial age – stirred his blood.