The need to be right can arise from a fear of being disrespected. Or it may come out of the fear of being seen as we really are: as flawed human beings who are perfectly imperfect and full of contradictions and confusions.

While interrupting is not always wrong, it should never become a habit.

You or I never buy an Intel product explicitly, and yet their sonic logo is far better known and more powerful than its visual equivalent. It's probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Conscious listening is very largely overlooked in the mainstream of education. It's such an important skill in life. And yet we expect children to pick it up from home or from peers informally.

We experience every space in five senses, so it's strange that architects design just for the eyes.

Sound in a space affects us profoundly. It changes our heart rate, breathing, hormone secretion, brain waves. It affects our emotions and our cognition.

People often mistake our mission at The Sound Agency for a crusade for silence, but actually, silence is in many ways just as bad as too much noise.

Most people think it's a linear relationship: I speak, you listen. Actually, it's a circle, because the way you listen affects how I speak, and the way I speak affects the way you listen.

If you want to be listened to, the first step is to listen well yourself.

You can't truly listen to someone and do anything else at the same time.

Music is made to be listened to, so you immediately have an issue where you're playing it in the background like wallpaper. Music doesn't want to behave like that.

Retailers don't think about why they have music. There are a number of issues. It can be very powerful in the right place, where it is played appropriately.

Without our natural soundscape, we are making ourselves tired, stressed, and frightened all at the same time.

By starting to pay attention to our natural soundscapes, businesses can reduce staff turnover, increase productivity, and increase profits.

Most of us walk around with our ears switched off because so much noise is unpleasant.

Unlike so many other sounds, there's no maximum exposure to birdsong.

Sound changes moods, yet most of the sound around us is unplanned.

I have visited a number of boutique hotels where you feel there is a little bit of self-indulgence going on.

If we teach our children how to listen properly to the world - and especially to each other - they will understand the consequences of their own sound and be far more responsible in making it.

Noise is the number one problem in modern offices. A big part of addressing this issue is making sure unwanted sound from adjacent spaces doesn't intrude or interfere.

It's time architects start designing for our ears as well as our eyes.

When you hear a child's voice, it will have that immediate effect of putting you in mind of looking after children.

Someone else's paper is fascinating until you buy it yourself. Then it loses its appeal, and you have to pass it on to someone else to reinvigorate it.

This devaluing of listening is handed down from generation to generation. There are many children who don't have the experience of being listened to by their parents.

If we're not listened to, then that doesn't create a desire inside us to listen to others. Societally, we don't value it.

As parents, we tend to be in Tell rather than Listen mode.

Baseball is more than a game. It's like life played out on a field.

Sometimes I feel like a human pin cushion. Every painful emotion hits me with ridiculously exaggerated force. And the anxiety feels like hands inside of me, squeezing my guts really hard.

If you want to achieve things in life, you've just got to do them, and if you're talented and smart, you'll succeed.

It costs a lot of money to make an album in a studio in New York with a producer and musicians. I have to pay a publicist every month. I have to pay for mastering, production, the manufacturing of the discs. Then, to promote an album properly, you have to spend a lot of money.

My music - that's the one area I won't let myself be pushed around. But in other parts of my life, I'm a confused mess.

I've finally learned to love my voice for its uniqueness.

Just do what feels right.

I don't really care about money. I find money boring and accounting boring, so I'm probably not going to ever make a lot of money.

People are complex. I'm just showing my complexity.

The most rabidly religious people are the most rabidly evil.

I think everyone's pretty much the same underneath. The collective unconscious is a real thing. There's only a few emotions, and we all have them. There's, like, seven emotions. So personal is universal. Everyone experiences confusion, joy and pain, just in different forms.

I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing.

People in L.A. don't have to brace themselves against the cold; they slack off permanently, and their brains turn to mush.

A heart that hurts is a heart that works.

Once I picked up an electric guitar, I lost interest in piano, and I just wanted to rock. I studied piano for so long, I got burned out on it.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

Puerto Rico has a stray dog problem. Tens of thousands of homeless canines - hundreds of thousands, by some estimates - live and die on the streets and beaches all over this Caribbean island of almost four million people.

Motivation is just this potion to create stuff, a compulsion to express the truth of my own experiences in this life.

I'm able to see humor in a lot of things.

My soul is fine, thanks.

What happens when your dream comes true - when the spotlight is on and then it moves away?

In this world, where everything happens so fast, it's hard to sit back, take the time and contemplate.

My dad was depressed a lot of the time, and there were a lot of things in his life that he never resolved.

I'm full of contradictions.