"I became a musician so I wouldn't have to get up at 6 in the morning."

"My first two records are so simply constructed. The reason isn't because I wanted to make simple music. It's because I don't really have the chops."

"I just want to keep making music, recording and trying different things. I don't want to do the same thing all the time."

"It's true, there's a lot of melancholy in my music. I don't know why, I'm not a melancholy person. I've always been drawn to it. Ever since I was a kid, if I had an album I would play the ballads on repeat."

"We live in an age when the traditional great subjects - the human form, the landscape, even newer traditions such as abstract expressionism - are daily devalued by commercial art."

"The art of living is discovering that shadows are only cast by the presence of light."

"You want to be a bit compulsive in your art or craft or whatever you do."

"Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout."