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" I'm quite sure I don't want legions of 15-year-old girls who call themselves, like, Broziers or something. My career isn't going to be that kind of a thing. "

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" All songs, all pieces of art, reflect the world that they were made in and the values of those artists and the hopes and aspirations of the people who listen to that music and who made that music. "

" When I write songs, I try to remove myself a little bit. Obviously, they're very personal to me, but it feels easier if I feel like I'm writing characters. "

" Things were never as exciting for me as the first gig in New York. "

" I was always drawn to gospel music and the roots of African-American music. It's the foundation of rock and roll. "

" The myth of fame and the myth of success is cultivated because it is monetisable and it is profitable. "

" For me growing up, I had a Christian upbringing, and I just noticed this Catholic influence in school. "

" There are a lot of recurring themes that I resonated with when I read 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.' "

" Some of the earlier stuff I did in studio with producers was very pop-directed, which I was uncomfortable with. "

" I love the sound of voices singing together, congregational singing, anything like gospel, or folk, or sea shanties. I spent quite a bit of time in choirs growing up, and in the world-touring music group, Anuna. It's a sound with very rich texture, voices singing together. "

" I feel my duty is to make music. "

" The success of 'Take Me To Church,' I never imagined it. I never imagined that it would work on radio, that it would find its way onto the charts, even at home and certainly not in America. "

" I didn't know what to expect of real America. What shocked me was the diversity of it and how different every city is. But also just how polite and usually good-willed and optimistic most Americans are. "

" One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I'm also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist. "

" I'm influenced a lot by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, even Paul Weller - Billie Holiday as well: People who wrote and sang songs that were reflective of their times. I quite like that. I quite admire that. "

" I used to almost not look forward to recording, because it was like, 'Okay, what am I going to have to sacrifice?' "

" I have a bit of a love affair with fairy tales and some of the ideas of Irish mythology, like Oscar Wilde and W.B. Yeats, who captured a lot of that very beautifully. "

" It's funny: Your relationship changes with a song over time. After a year or so, you're a different person, so your songs, you don't connect with them like you did. "

" Regardless of the sexual orientation behind a relationship, it is still a relationship and still love. "

" Either somebody has equal rights, or they don't. And certainly in the Irish constitution, marriage is genderless. There's no mention of a man and a woman. "

" I love Muddy Waters and Nina Simone. I also watched 'The Blues Brothers' movie over and over. "

" My hair grows into a fuzz ball - I just wanted it to grow downwards rather than outwards - but then I realized I couldn't play guitar with it that way. I couldn't do anything day-to-day without my hair getting in my mouth or my eyes or my food, so I just started tying it back, long before I knew what a man bun was. "

" Certainly in the case of having to answer questions about where a song comes from, it's a hell of a lot easier when you say, 'I've removed myself from it.' But they start from quite a personal place. They always do. "

" There are a few Irish writers who have a very strong influence on me, especially on the 'Take Me to Church' EP. "

" I will play around with an idea for a very long time until it's found it's feet and it's good enough to become a song. "

" The way I did the first album... the way I wrote 'Church'... was just to trust my instincts with the music and let it kind of do what it does. "

" My musical education was grounded in blues and Chicago blues - John Lee Hooker and Otis Redding. "

" I didn't even have that many close LGBT friends or anything like that, but I suppose it was growing up and becoming aware of how you are in a cultural landscape that is blatantly homophobic... you turn around and say, 'Why did I grow up in a homophobic place? Why did I grow up in a misogynistic place?' "

" I was essentially raised on blues music. My dad was a blues musician around Dublin when I was a baby, so the only music I would listen to growing up was John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. It's music that feels like home to me. "

" I never wrote music for the mainstream. "

" Growing up in Ireland, there are a lot of aspects of God that hang in the air. And my music reflects that. "