Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can.

When you start writing songs on your own, there's no Bible, there's no one around you, so you're just writing, and you're left with, like, the dead space in your head to know if it's a good song or an interesting concept.

Everyone has something that they carry always, even if it's just as simple as, 'I hate myself.' Everyone's got a different thing.

The exciting thing about Bleachers and fun. are they're different, and they're aesthetically different in many ways. But it's also like my role is very different, and that's cool.

I have my cousin's jacket from when he was at war in Iraq. He never came home. It's incredible to have something that is so personal but that I also feel relatively comfortable wearing.

In this business, it's important to constantly do things that you don't know how to do. I love touring and making records, but I've learned how to do that, so sometimes you just have to dive in and try it.

That's what is incredible about human beings, is the choice to keep going.

I could probably name thousands of albums that I want.

Of course, the majority of us would speak up in the face of outrageous bigotry, but do we speak up in a social situation when someone casually refers to something as 'gay'? If we don't, we are standing with the homophobes whom we are quietly fighting.

There's nothing more adult than being ripped away from friends and family, you know? Having to manage a life when you're not fully there, manage a life when you don't make a lot of money. It's very adult.

For me, a perfect pop song is something like 'This Year,' by the Mountain Goats.

All I have to do to continue to make things work is make great records, and that's more important than having a crazy master plan.

Tinashe doing 'I Wanna Get Better' - it's a really personal song, and it was hard for me to imagine anyone else doing it, but stylistically her and I are so incredibly different that I was fascinated to hear what she'd do with it, and I completely loved it. It just felt like the different expression of a song that, to me, was so stamped in one way.

As straight Americans we have two choices: we can choose to sit back and enjoy our rights as we have them, or we can realize that it is actually not freedom at all when our friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues do not share these basic rights.

When you go all over the world for work, your dream vacation is your bedroom.

Great songs come out of people's bedrooms; they come out of studios; there's no formula for it.

The heart and soul of pop is newness, excitement, innovation.

Everybody has this sack they're carrying. Some are heavier. Some are lighter. But no one doesn't have it. And if you think someone doesn't have it, they have a bigger one than you imagine.

To grow up five miles outside of the greatest city in the world is a bizarre experience.

I've ended up on some website list or some other list for super right-wing people. They've been tweeting some pretty rude stuff at me, so I think there's a sect of America out there that doesn't like certain opinions and can really take their claws out when they don't like what you're saying.

When you're in a band, it's like everyone's the CEO, and anyone could destroy it at any moment.

With art and the work you do, it has to be constantly dictated by what you're feeling and where you want to go with it.

My grandparents got out of Poland right before the Holocaust and came here, and the only thing that mattered was surviving.

When I started playing in bands, we had to be apologetic for what we did. We had to be apologetic because the mainstream was so bad.

There was this darkness about being from New Jersey.

I think it's nice to do work that is vaguely compromising to your health because it means you really care about it.

One thing a lot of people don't know about Fun. was that the three of us all came from 10 years of touring with our own projects. That's how we met, actually.

The only people playing the roles of classic rock stars are hip-hop artists, now. Kanye's stage persona, and the way he approaches making albums, and the way he wants to be better than everyone else? That's reminiscent of Freddie Mercury. That's reminiscent of the Beatles.

You get to a point where everything is so important. One day you have 'Letterman,' and the next day you're at the MTV Movie Awards, and the next day you have a sold-out show for over 15,000 people. You can't cancel anything, because it's just too much to let everyone down, which is an interesting thing about being in a bigger band.

The first band I was ever in, I played guitar. We did Gary Glitter and Green Day covers at the time. We were called Fizz. I have no idea why we picked that. We were, like, 12 years old.

I think men are, like, repulsive, and I prefer being in a room with women. I think they're often just more interesting.

My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the '90s in general - growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.

The best pop music is the songs that a group of people can dance to, but you can also listen to in your bed and cry. That's something obviously that The Beatles started and... so having that darkness there opens another door.

What sets 'Some Nights' apart from anything we've ever done is the hip-hop influence. Not so much the actual sound of hip-hop, but more the vibrato and the artistry that comes with it. Right now, the artists that seem to be pushing to be the greatest artists and are trying to change the world are hip-hop artists.

'Glee' is one of the very few mainstream outlets that is giving a voice to communities of people that don't necessarily have a loud voice, specifically the gay community. It gives a really positive and forward statement.

I think that everyone at any age should ask themselves, 'where do I want to be today, where do I want to be tomorrow, and where do I want to be in a hundred years?' We all have clear answers to those questions. We only have so much time. It's a real shame if we don't spend our lives trying to do that.

So many boys and girls talk the same way, listen to the same music, look the same. If I'm out, I'll notice the person who looks different before I notice the person who's, 'really hot.'

Social paralysis is strong and stands firmly in the way of change on the ground level. As allies, we have to prepare ourselves to step into the fire when necessary, even - and especially - when said fire is merely a still-lit cigarette tossed carelessly onto the street.

I never understood the idea of canceling a show when you don't like the politics of a specific state.

I'm not super into sports.

I think it's all about making records when you're inspired to make them.

It really is true that when an issue becomes pop culture, it changes faster, and it's really great for the issue.

The way that people have gotten on board with me is the most encouraging thing in the world, but it's all very connected to the 14 years I've been on tour with Steel Train, even my band before that, Outline, and then fun. and now Bleachers.

I've worked so hard for so long, and everyone's reaction has made me feel like... almost like they trust me, which is just a wonderful feeling. It pushes me to write things better and better.

I want to be able to do work where I think it's very forward, but I also want it to exist in a big way and have an effect on a lot of people.

I think that some of the most amazing places to be or to grow up are the places right outside of great cities, because you're sort of constantly in this suspended state of, like, looking inside the window, wanting to be in the party. I think it breeds good feelings.

The connection I make with being young and growing up is, like, the feeling of not being crushed by the world. Having an idea, thinking you can do it.

When I was growing up, it was a lot of punk and hardcore music going on in legion halls and firehouses, and we'd play those shows, and it was very Jersey. It was very suburban, and there's just a great pride there.

I started buying vinyl records when I got into punk music because, in the punk scene in New Jersey, vinyl was more like a necessity than a luxury.

It just seems like the most fun thing in the world. I've never met people who have kids who haven't looked me in the eye and been like, 'It's the greatest thing that's ever happened.'