I've never done much to try to build an audience.

I'm not the type to demand affirmation or to worry that I'll be forgotten. I'm more the type to dare the world to forget me.

I always had a background belief in God. In other words, instinctually I've never doubted that we are not alone.

Everything I write goes through a lot of drafts. A hundred rewrites is not unusual for me to go through - the last fifty maybe just going back and forth on a single line or word selection.

In my whole life, I've had maybe 10 people who have told me how much my music means to them.

I try every day and every night to find a movie or a TV show that I can watch, but I just can't make it past ten minutes of anything.

I made records for 20 years, I lived off it. But people would say I made so many mistakes, I did so many things you're not supposed to do. I had a band name nobody could say. I didn't play live. I never practiced, I never got better at my instrument.

Sometimes I turn the TV just below where you can hear it and write down what I think they might be saying by the mumbles and rhythms.

I read Henry Miller's 'Nexus,' 'Sexus' and 'Plexus' the summer after I graduated from college. It cemented my decision to spurn any and all careers.

Some people like my singing. But it sounds like bad singing to a lot of other people.

In the beginning, because of the Pavement thing, we were able to sell a certain amount of records. We were able to sell not such a great amount of records, but enough to live on. So there was no incentive to do what didn't come naturally.

I hear luxury brand names, I cringe.

I don't have room in my mind to think about musical equipment.

In 2004, I don't think any Silver Jews fan was probably expecting another record.

You don't meet too many actors in Nashville.

All musicians should write poetry or at least read it if they want to improve their game. Except for people who believe lyrics don't matter.

I trust myself.

I think reporters think that they can get something extra out of a person face-to-face, but in reality people just give stock answers because there's a social situation going on.

I have bad vision, but it's not distorted. It's low power!

In an email... like I did 100 interviews, and I never repeated one story. That's impossible to do when you do face-to-face interviews, because your brain locks and you say the same thing over and over again.

If critics were harder on the musicians that they love, there would be better songs. But as they grow older and they lose their talent, critics refuse to let them know that and protect them, and they get to the point where they put out music that just isn't up to the levels where they've already been.

When art is about craftsmanship, then guys like me don't make it as artists.

In a lot of ways, I wouldn't be an artist in another time. I need to exist in a time where high and low art mix easily.

My whole life I've tried to find the thing I can do that other people can't do, and invest in that, and the one thing I can do is write narratives and build characters. I can do that.

I was much further along as a poet than as a songwriter, but the songs were getting more attention. They were doing what art is supposed to do, mixing it up with people.

I bought a guitar when I was twenty. But I didn't write a song until I was 25 or 26. I never learned to play others songs. I learned to play my own songs while I was learning how to make them better.

I've never been from a certain group. I've always reserved a space for myself where I'm unattached to any group, but the part of Judaism that I really take away, that means something to me, is the part about community.

Bobby Braddock is great.

I grew up the son of a businessman. And I didn't get into music to be a businessman.

Natalie Maines has a voice for the centuries.

I always loved bands with mystique.

I heard Springsteen was an unhappy person. I don't know, I haven't read his biography. But a lot of people in my field should be a lot more unhappy than they are.

I can't imagine putting my name on a t-shirt. For someone to wear my name? Me? It's ridiculous.

I don't have time for language poetry anymore. I don't want to throw people off anymore.

For a long time, I've struggled very, very much with what people call treatment-resistant depression.

The world of commerce is a kind of a purgatory itself.

Yeah, once the song is written, it just complexifies the profile of it to have the music and the words at odds. It comes naturally to me. A lot of my music is like that.

I don't have any desire to be in a relationship with anyone else, and I do feel like I'm on the other side of my career of being a Lothario.

In the beginning, it was meant to be like a faceless art piece. Then I did the first record and it received enough notice to satisfy my needs. I questioned the procedure out of fear. The Silver Jews was never meant to be recreated live.

I was 29 or 30 when I felt sure of what I was doing, but not fully identifying as a songwriter until I was 37.

If I believed in fate I'd be very curious why I picked the name Silver Jews.

Intellectuals and creative people, once they start talking about God they get put into this other category: 'I don't go to people's music like that to understand my life.'

Lyrically, country music is the most satisfying music for me.

Allen Ginsburg was wrong about a lot of things, but especially when he said, 'First thought, best thought.'

I was not born to be the center of attention in a crowded room.

I believe that intermittent live performance has cut short the writing lives of touring musicians.

The greatest thing about Nashville is that it's welcoming.

Nashville only thrives when talented people from out of town move here from somewhere else.

My only advice would be to someone right now, is if you're in a position in your life where you need to make a change, this is the best time.

I take pride in the fact that I can walk away from things. My willingness to walk away has protected me, I realize that now. Being able to walk away from sessions, from poetry, from dreams of being a poetry professor.