I find composition difficult. I never thought of myself as someone who can crank it out. I can't crank it out - I have to dig it out the hard way. In some sense, you become more confident in your technical apparatus, but it becomes harder to do something you haven't done already.
I've lived a lot since I was 16, so I've got more things to write about. I've started playing around the world and met some great people along the way who've taught me lots of things.
There were times, sure, I wanted my career to go better. But once it starts to go downhill, you can never get back, or only to some degree.
Investigating some of the largest subprime lenders - Wells Fargo, Countrywide, Ameriquest, Household Finance - I've seen how their terrible, toxic loans were closed by any means necessary and eventually packaged, sold as securities, and bet upon until they exploded and decimated our economy.
I've always been an extremist. Some of us have very addictive personalities, and for some of us, that mechanism gets tripped up. Mine certainly did. I'm not cured. You never are. The recovery is a day-to-day process.
Some of the best songs I've written, I've written in 10 minutes.
Television is ephemeral, a fact that some will find reassuring. But earthlings will continue to pump the kilowatts into the ether. And eventually, when those signals have washed over a few hundred thousand star systems, someone may notice.
It was in England that I discovered theatre. I didn't have any money, but I would just eat yoghurt in order to get some money for tickets.
The freedom to fail is vital if you're going to succeed. Most successful people fail from time to time, and it is a measure of their strength that failure merely propels them into some new attempt at success.
I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.
There are so many people who have eating disorders or who body shame themselves every day or have some sort of insecurity, and I feel like I have a direct reach to some of those people.
As a species, we've always been discoverers and adventurers, and space and the deep ocean are some of the last frontiers.
It took me some time to realize television, for someone like me, was the perfect medium. I like to produce, I like to be detail-orientated, I like to be in charge of a lot of things, and I like to be a storyteller. It's kind of the perfect gig for someone like me.
The U.S. has the most dysfunctional healthcare system in the industrial world, has about twice the per capita costs, and some of the worst outcomes. It's also the only privatized system.
Back in the early '90s, I started going to Nashville to do a lot of co-writes. One of the first people I met there was Keith Follese. Keith and his wife Adrienne are both songwriters, and we wrote some songs together.
It is important to fund young researchers who want to do curiosity-driven research. Curiosity-driven research is a part of life. Some people are curious. They want to learn more about nature and society should help that. It's like art: you can learn more and bring more beauty.
I might occasionally forget how to open a car door and have too many shower curtains, but I've got some standards.
When you look at the Chevrolet Volt, those customers are some of the most satisfied across the industry.
My fans are crazy, but in a good way. Very supportive, and some tweet me more like a 100 times a day. As for tour tales, I have a saying: 'What happens on tour stays on tour.'
I'm outgoing when I have to be, but usually, I'm kinda shy. I always think people don't want to talk to me. Some people might take that as being stuck-up, but I'm just shy.
I do like silver. I love antiques. I collect Georgian glass at home. When you think about how fragile that it is and think about how long these things have lasted - some of it is 400 years old - I find the history of these things extraordinary.
I definitely get inspired by people who are disgusting on some level.
You know how when you read a book and it becomes a movie, and it's different than you pictured? In some ways, acting is a lot like that.
I almost drowned in a hot tub at a writing workshop once after I had some drinks without accounting for how the high elevation would impact my tolerance.
I connect fashion to other peoples' elegance, but not my own. I don't think I've ever felt elegant. I've felt appropriate, but never elegant, and I wonder what that must be like. I like it when other people are elegant - I prefer it - but I can't do it myself. I honestly think it's some form of autistic disorder.
I grew up playing hockey and some football, and I always think about the first time you walk into the locker room on a new team. The cliques are looking at you funny, and you make one friend, but then they're trying to stab you in the back.
I always thought there were some people who were just destined to be disengaged in their jobs because that was their personality, and no matter how hard managers tried, there wasn't much they could do with some of those people.
We are all in Christ's energy. We are all in the divine plan. We are all on the sacred journey, if you want to put it into some very spiritual words. And I like to sing about it, so that's what I do.
Barack Obama's decision to come out in favour of gay marriage may be a historic occasion, but it is not an isolated one. His administration has been making pro-gay noises for some time; his demographic in the upcoming election is young and educated, precisely the group that favours equality for the LGBT community.
I had a band called the Sound Of Love, and that was R&B songs about girls in my high school. I played in some other indie bands who were trying to make it big; those sucked. Then I started Makeout Videotape, and that was that.
There is no way to physically always be there for your children and always be at the office and always be present for your significant other and then take care of yourself. The laws of physics necessitate that somebody or some thing is going to get the short end of the stick.
I still love to do the old songs. I know some people don't.
The vast majority of the online crime cases, we don't even know which continent the attacks are coming from. And even if we are able to find online criminals, quite often there is no outcome. The local police don't act, or if they do, there's not enough evidence, or for some reason we can't take them down.
I've matured as a writer and human being. I've got some wisdom under my belt.
Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower, or because God our Lord, seeing that it would be good for them, allows them to melt into tears. But this does not mean that they have greater charity or that they are more effective than others who enjoy no tears.
In my 40s - when I was giving to the Red Cross, United Jewish Appeal and other charities - I said to myself, this is all well and good, but these are really amorphous things, and maybe there are some causes out there that I really give a damn about.
