“The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.”

I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see.

Rock and roll is – and should be – a kid’s place.

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there’s a lot of subtlety. That’s what I’m proud of.

Now that I have found someone, I’m feeling more alone… than I ever have before.

Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible – it wasn’t an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.

A lot of 18-year-olds are like old men. They think they’ve seen everything.

Im really good at writing almost hits.

What stupid f – king idiot gets married a second time if the first time didn’t work out?

I’ve gotten to the point where I realize that I need to tell my truth in music and not walk around blabbing my mind.

It’s a tough thing to know that when you’re making your album, you’re going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

I want people to listen to my lyrics and be okay with themselves. The people who have it the roughest are homosexuals who come out of the closet.

If you can’t draw a crowd, draw dicks on the wall

I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you.

Off the coast and I’m headed nowhere

I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.

I look to an out gay man or woman as pretty much what I would aspire to. The strength that it takes to do that and the floodgates that open and what they pay for it.

I am invisible in gay bars.

I like to play in the low 70’s. If it gets any hotter than that I’ll stay in the bar!

Michael Jackson was not an artist who comes along once in a decade, a generation, or a lifetime. He was an artist who comes along only once, period… He raised the bar and then BROKE the bar!

Membership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.

I’m not confident in social situations; just going up to someone in a bar and saying ‘Hi’ is going to be even more difficult because they won’t know the real me. They will just know me as a fictional person I play on the screen.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

Fear builds walls to bar the light.

I was a grill cook at McDonalds for a little bit. I did landscape for a little bit. I played a lot in the bar scene, I played countless sets of acoustic songs in that arena.