Screaming is bad for the voice, but it's good for the heart.

The first music I ever got into was the '80s alternative bands that my brother listened to, like The Cure and The Smiths and R.E.M. and Fugazi. I can remember specifically saying The Cure was my favorite band back in second grade.

It's human nature to wonder.

If you think about the concept of reincarnation, it's essentially uploading yourself and your spirit into a new form, a new hard drive as it were.

I think in a lot of ways unconditional love is a myth. My mom's the only reason I know it's a real thing.

Once you realize that everyone is in the same boat, that everyone is just as insecure and childlike as everyone else, that all these jokers in D.C. ruining our world are just greedy kids grabbing for marbles - I think that realization means you're an adult.

I have a lot of friends that take that position of extreme cynicism, and I just can't let myself go to that place. It's just too easy, and it's just too defeatist.

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music.

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep, and all their tearful words will turn back into steam.

I think there are some songs that stand the test of time better than others for sure. I think some songs go out of favour; I'll get sick of a song for a while, and I won't play it; then it'll make a comeback.

Movement has been one of the few constants in my life, and I always feel a great sense of optimism when I set off to a new place.

I like to feel the burn of the audience's eyes when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone.

On every Bright Eyes record, there's some kind of sound collage that begins it. Some of them have dialogue, some don't. I like it because it can kind of slow down the attention span a bit. It's a way to draw you in to the rest of the record.

I always embrace the worst-case scenario.

Why are you scared to dream of god when it's salvation that you want?

I think that, with anything creative, you should have the freedom to experiment, and that experimentation means not feeling totally responsible for how other people perceive it.

Love's an excuse to get hurt.

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul.

Considering our history, I can think of nothing more American than an immigrant.

There's a lot of optimism in changing scenery, in seeing what's down the road.

Now I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers and laid entwined together on a bed of clover and left there to sleep, left there to dream of their happiness.

I'll never understand how destroying families through deportation benefits our society. How we treat the undocumented says a great deal about us as a people and whether or not we'll continue to fulfill the fundamental American promise of equality and opportunity for all.

I have a car in Nebraska. When I bought it, they gave me a satellite radio, and there's an 'indie-rock' station. It's just nothing I'm interested in.

I've cried, and you'd think I'd be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.