If you've ever seen paparazzi go after a celebrity, it's really freaky.

There's a lot psychologically going on in boxing... I think I relate to some of it. I have a respect for it. It's like performing, but it's also this crazy, self-destructive thing.

I was in school for four years writing music to please my teachers. That was not music I liked. And when I make music that isn't for something I want to make, and it's to please other people, it's - the outcome is really bad.

I do develop characters for songs, and I think of everything as storytelling, in a way. But I don't plan out what they're going to sound like. I just sing over what I've done.

I listen to the timbre of the music, and I fit my voice to blend with that timbre.

When you make music on your own for so long, you get used to just doing whatever you want.

I like talking about my music.

I don't ever like to see paparazzi much, but I have seen them, and I guess anyone who's seen them knows how scary they are.

I really like being home. I like being comfortable, and I'm not a very dramatic person.

I thought I was gonna get a doctorate in composition or be a composer and be at a university for the rest of my life, mostly because my parents are academics, and that was the logical thing to do.

I don't often meet with strangers and feel okay about collaborating with them.

'Betsy' is one of my favorites because it is the one to which I've imposed the least clear narrative. To me, it's so much more about the feeling - desperation - than any kind of story at all. There's very little imagery or character development; it's just about a deep and desperate search for something.

The meaning of the words in my songs are very important to me. But what's most important to me is that the music works.

I try to not think too much about how people are receiving my music. And I'm not really famous enough that it's a problem.

I don't think I'll ever become a pop star.

I don't know how well I work in traditions. I don't know if it's just the way I listened to music growing up and never having my foot in one particular world, and just wanting to do my own thing.

I say most of my music is very trial-and-error.

I don't consider myself supremely talented, but I really like to try things and sift through it and see what mess I made.

I don't think all music that is considered 'avant-garde' is bad, but it's definitely elitist. I hope my music is not that.

The Beatles, even Radiohead, all of my favorite stuff I'd play on the piano. But it was all very secret - for me, for fun. I wasn't going to record myself playing those songs, and it never occurred to me to write a song of my own.

I really write at home on my own, and the demos themselves are very similar to the final recordings in a lots of ways.

Saying that something is accessible gives it this implication that people need something, and thinking that we know what people need or want is really unpleasant. I don't like to think that way, like, predicting what it is that the people want.

I don't write thinking directly about what I'm feeling, usually. I just let myself write whatever comes out without it necessarily being directly a translation of what I'm aware that I'm feeling, you know?

I don't fit into a group very well socially. And that might be reflected in my music.

A lot of my personal life feels very separate from my music.

When I'm depressed is when I'm not interested in writing anything, whereas some people, I think, are spurred to creativity through their personal experiences and through depression. And for me, it's a very low place, and it's not fruitful.

For me, the poetic decisions tend to be calculated, and the musical decisions inspired by the poetic decisions are free.

I like working with students a lot and watching some of the amazing stuff they put together.

One thing I've learned is I really want to work with people.

One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit.

If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives - not concerns, nor tribulation, not worries.

The spirit of God has the habit of taking the words of Jesus out of their scriptural setting and putting them into the setting of our personal lives.

One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, 'What do you expect to do?' You don't know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing.......Hav e you been asking what God is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do. He reveals to you who he is.

Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day. Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say, 'I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God.' No, this is your time alone with your habit.

The man who prays ceases to be a fool

Peace is the deepest thing a human personality can know; it is almighty

The whole idea of the prayers of the saints is that God's holiness, God's purpose, God's ways may be brought about irrespective of who comes or goes.

The great paralysis of our heart is unbelief.

Prayer is the answer to every problem there is.

Many of us have a mental conception of what a Christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on God.

Why shouldn’t we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God’s purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say, “Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.” If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?

As Christians we are not out for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens.

All Christians have the Spirit of Christ, but not all Christians have the mind of Christ.

Prayer is the vital breath of the Christian; not the thing that makes him alive, but the evidence that he is alive.

The Christian who is truly intimate with Jesus will never draw attention to himself but will only show the evidence of a life where Jesus is completely in control. This is the outcome of allowing Jesus to satisfy every area of life to its depth. The picture resulting from such a life is that of the strong, calm balance that our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.

The peace that Jesus gives is never engineered by circumstances on the outside.

We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions.

How many people have you made homesick for God?

Confidence in the natural world is self-reliance; in the spiritual world, it is God-reliance.

God wants to use us as He used His own Son