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" What happens to us all, I think, when we pick up a pen, is that we just become snobs. "

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" As a busker, one thing that does not work is self-consciousness. A busker needs to be working. A busker needs to shed all ego and get down to work. Play your songs, play them well, earn your money, and don't get in people's way. "

" I busked from the age of 13 until I was 18. "

" The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write. "

" You know, albums are a funny thing. They're not like an intellectual decision. It's a collection of your kind of musings. "

" Sadness is a very interesting idea, this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness, and the idea that sadness is very loud, and happiness is quiet. "

" My life at home is super simple. My local bar with my mates, cooking for my mother, making tables, planting vegetables: It's the classic idea of the artistic existence. "

" Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking. "

" In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money. "

" I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it. "

" I've realized, you know, having turned 40, that rest is just as important as work. In fact, it's equally as important. "

" I pick up my guitar and play. Something might come, and then the pen comes out. Then an edit, until something comes out that you're actually satisfied with. "

" You know, when I was a kid waiting on the bus, I remember that was when I imagined my life. I imagined everything that I was gonna be when I grew up and I imagined all of these amazing journeys and amazing people I'd meet. Of course, all of it has kind of come to fruition. "

" I love the idea of leaving some of the original abstract thought in, because the problem is that when you pick up a pen you become a snob, your own worse critic. You edit yourself in a way that is non-creative. "

" Well, playing a guy who writes songs and busks on Grafton Street in Dublin and falls in love with Marketa Irglova wasn't very difficult for me. There was very little acting going on. "

" The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present. "

" I've always felt that if I ever got cynical, I would have to stop making music because I'd just be poisoning the air. "

" I won't say I've closed the door on acting. "

" Our imagination just needs space. It's all it needs, that moment where you just sort of stare into the distance where your brain gets to sort of somehow rise up. "

" This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid. "

" I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. "

" Do I create conflicts for myself? Sure I do. "

" Sometimes you give birth to something or you're part of a team that gives birth to an idea, and it grows and has a whole life of its own, and you feel grateful. It's just so humbling. "

" A song is like a saddle: you ride it for a while, and if it's the right kind of song you can sing it for the rest of your life. "

" Keeping the pen out of your hand as much as possible is the best way to write a song, in my estimation. But the pen must come in to tighten it up. "

" My dad was quiet, angry, shut down. So my thing is: I express everything that's there. I want to get it all out. "

" If you stand still in any city long enough, you see everyone pass you by. So you're in Chicago. If you stand on the corner of Belmont and Clark, and you do that for three years, you'll pretty much have seen everybody in Chicago pass that junction. "

" Sometimes travelling really intensely for a long time is like having a continuous nervous breakdown. "

" And for some reason, when I'm sad, I do listen to Leonard Cohen, I do listen to Joni Mitchell. I do find myself going to the music that's actually reflecting my mood, as opposed to sticking on Motown, which might actually bring my mood up. "

" And I've always loved playing solo. "

" There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well. "