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" It seems like everything I do musically I tend to lose a few fans and gain a few fans, and it all kind of evens out. "

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" To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic. "

" Although Omaha is my birthplace and the place I grew up, I don't see myself spending extended amounts of time there. I feel almost more comfortable and more at peace in New York. "

" I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out. "

" When I try to explain to people the big influences in my life, or at least when I first started, the most important ones were my friends who were also writing songs and were typically four or five years older than me. "

" One of my best friends, Mike, had a kid. Just seeing him go through it all was inspiring. It would be so nice to care about someone more than yourself. And Mike is a total delinquent, so if he can do it, I figure I can, too. "

" When I was younger, I was somewhat of an idealist. I guess I'm a little bit more of a realist now. I think there's a lot that can be done to make the world a better place, but it's more about choosing your battles. "

" The one recurring theme in my writing, and in my life in general, is confusion. The fact that anytime you think you really know something, you're going to find out you're wrong - that is the rule. The moments where you think you have something figured out, those are the exceptions. "

" To outsiders it probably seems like splitting hairs, but to me, Bright Eyes is a simply the collaboration between myself and Mike Mogis and Nate Walcott. What you hear is definitely the sum of all our ideas and represents all three of us. But I still write the songs myself. "

" When I would first come to New York on tour, I hated the place. "

" It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them. "

" There's a small amount of super-wealthy people that want to maintain their billions and billions of dollars. Those are the people who are really making the decisions. "

" When I started writing songs, I was doing it for myself and a small circle of friends. And gradually, over the years, an audience became involved. "

" 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. "

" It's dangerous to buy into praise and criticism for what you do when you're trying to present your music to people. I don't ignore it completely, but I don't dwell on it too much. "

" You can only really understand good if you have bad, so the idea of heaven or anything that happens for eternity, even if it's nice, I can't imagine it being nice forever. Even the idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know. "

" It's glorious to be able to go onto the Internet and hear any kind of music anywhere, from anywhere, and get it instantly. But there's also something glorious about having a record with a sleeve and looking at the artwork, putting it on the turntable and playing it, there's still something romantic to me about that. "

" I find that moving keeps me optimistic, the idea of what's going to be down the road a bit or around the next bend. "

" My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose. "

" They say it's better to bury your sadness in a graveyard or garden that waits for the spring to wake from its sleep and burst into green. "

" I read the newspaper online. Mostly 'The New York Times.' I'll still buy papers if I'm getting on an airplane or the tour bus, though. I like physical things. "

" The best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way. "

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

" Love's an excuse to get hurt. "

" Gabriel Garcia Marquez is one of my all-time favorite writers. I feel spiritual when reading his words, even though they're translated. I wish desperately that I could read it in its original language. I already feel like I'm going to church when I read him; imagine if I could read it in the original. "

" The worst thing you can do as an artist is to repeat yourself. "

" One of my favorite modern American authors is Denis Johnson. I'm deeply inspired by all of his work - I rip him off constantly. "

" With science and reason throughout history, what people believed turned out to be false. So I like to keep an open mind to all perspectives and learn and become more fully realised as a person. I just feel we're never going to know what the full picture is. "

" You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't. "

" The way my life's structured, I don't stay in a place for more than a couple months. "

" Joe Arpaio needs no help from me getting attention. For years he has been a beacon of bigotry and intolerance for all the world to see. The list of human and civil-rights abuses he's committed in Maricopa County is long and well documented. "