I feel like my consignment and fear from people pushed me to become a performer.

I feel like one thing that messed me up was living in a homophobic and transphobic society, and just being the object of mockery and disgust in your average sitcom or movie or person at school.

We take a lot of inspiration from punk rock and early rock 'n' roll from the '50s and early '60s.

My focus is matters of the heart and matters of the spirit, emotion and passion and stuff like that. But I think I've been getting better at being more specific about what it is I care about. Such as the welfare of refugees and solidarity between threatened populations.

I see a skill developing of writing about not just feelings that I'm feeling, but things that I deeply care about as well.

I just don't care that much about the band name. I'm not so precious about it. The Harpoons were different people, but The Boy-Friends were and are the same people as The Visions. I changed it to The Visions when we made 'Transangelic Exodus' because I guess we didn't feel so friendly and boyish anymore.

I'm trying to be an activist, and I think of that as separate from my work as an artist. But it isn't.

I don't like the notion that artists have a responsibility to be political.

I always maintain that artists do not have any responsibility to do anything except cause no harm and do whatever we want to do as artists.

Not only am I a shy person, I take a little while to say what I mean, especially in a social situation, and usually those move too fast for me to say anything at all.

God is close to the brokenhearted, and God lifts up the lonely. That was a message that was explicitly quoted to me and was part of my upbringing: Brokenhearted people and poor people and people who are in trouble should be your focus, and you should be on their team.

I first got into music when I heard punk, and it was saying maybe it's OK if you don't live up to the expectations various authorities have for you.

I get stage fright really bad sometimes, so touring has been hard on me in a lot of ways. But despite that, I love performing.

The Velvet Underground is probably the best band that's ever existed, assuredly the best American one.

I write good songs out of fear... fear of failure. Because if they're not good enough, you feel yourself starting to fall.

You have to make a character of yourself if you're going to be known to strangers.

I don't really worship the album 'Transformer.' It's not the best thing that Lou Reed has done.

I was rather obsessed with angels.

Jews like to write and sing. In America, a lot of us have been eager to show that we're part of American culture. But it all goes back to King David writing Psalms.

It's always about staying competitive with myself... Popularity is something that may happen from time to time, and I don't trust it and I don't think it means too much. I'm going for greatness.

I could write a joke song really easily, but I think something that might be true for my generation is that there's a certain irony or detachedness expected of us, even though we really feel sincere. So the only way to sincerity is through a joke.

I heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.

We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.

I write all the time and I try to think of ideas all the time.