“No one wanted a job. No one could hold a job. You tend to see those going hand in hand.”

The feeling of being halfway through a show and just realizing that there’s nothing you can do to save it – it’s a horrible feeling.

Most of the bands that I really hold in my heart – you don’t think about them as bands; they’re just the soundtrack of your life.

I probably couldn’t have the same experience listening to that song because I’m self-conscious about some of my singing parts.

Regarding race or gender or sexuality, one of the great things about art and music is that they can provide people with very little else in common with a similar entry point for discussion, but the discussions still need to happen for life to get more interesting.

Hearing that [David] Bowie passed was like you don’t really believe it. It’s as if the sky shifted a little bit, to remind you it was there.

If anybody won life, David Bowie did, at least as a creative entity in the sense of writing yourself into existence and writing yourself out in such a graceful swoop.

Most of the bands that I really like no longer exist. That might just be because I’m in my thirties or whatever. But I also think it’s the rare band that doesn’t, like, turn into something else.

It’s insane when someone shows up to your show and is like, “You could run off with me right now!” I’m like, “It’s cool, I think I’m gonna go read.”

Adding instruments to parts of a song and having them somehow find a pocket. That to me was a huge lesson. Like, there’s more than 808s in the universe.

I feel like people just let each other live a little more in New York.

I have nothing against people getting their band back together, but the artists I love marked a time in my life, and to merge that time with now can be personally depressing.

You can physically move yourself around but there’s that great line that Adam wrote: “Does it define for life, like print of thumb?” I think it does.

When I’m in the mode of feeling positive about love, I don’t really feel the need to mark it down in song. In fact, I know what that song would sound like, and I would not subject anybody to that.

I don’t want my reasons to be informed by what people think about what I’m doing.

Oftentimes, when music is just blasting out it seems like it’s overcompensating for something missing in the song’s structure. When I think of the music that I listen to constantly, it’s never like an assault.

Adam is one of my favourite writers, period. He has such a unique voice and he’s somebody who I admire so much for putting the effort into inventing his own language and furthering it.

I dont see myself only as a Somali character. I think of myself as an actor, and if the job fits me and I like the story, I will go for it.

It’s crazy to think of myself as a musician. It’s ridiculous that I get to do it, and I don’t necessarily mean music. Getting to do something you really enjoy as a job is an incredible privilege, I think. I still don’t really feel like a musician outside of the actual music.

Look, I’m a conservative, I’m a very conservative guy, and – and the Trump campaign is making your job over at NBC really, really, really easy in terms of going after conservatives and Republicans if he’s the standard bearer for conservatism.

Our first responders risk their lives to help others. The least we can do is make sure they have the resources they need to do their jobs.

When you start getting jobs, and see your mates from drama school, you don’t really want to talk about it, because you have this innate sense of guilt that it’s not fair that others aren’t doing exactly what you’re doing. I do have that.

I was literally just going and applying for jobs, and I couldn’t get a job, and I was getting more and more broke, and you find yourself groveling for jobs you don’t even want.

I’ve been pretty lucky, I like my jobs.

It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.