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" 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. "

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" No Facebook status is as worrying as a vote and no tweet is as noticeable as an angry cry from a crowd outside a government building. "

" It's kind of strange to hear your songs sung back to you! You get a big insight into what people connect to, what's moving to people or what songs people are really into. "

" I think it is important to differentiate between lip service towards something and actually making change. "

" There's not a lot of room for thinking in popular culture; there's not a lot of room for being conflicted. "

Popular Culture

" I've definitely received a lot of support in Nashville; it's a huge music town. I like country music. Like any genre I'm largely unfamiliar with, there are elements I really enjoy and elements that go over my head. "

" I always thought of myself as a very, very obscure artist. "

" I'm not cross about the idea of baptism; I just think the idea that when a child is born it is inherently sinful and carries sin and needs to be cleaned in order for it to be all right and all good with its creator, I just think that's an absurd notion. "

" I had just discovered jazz, and I started singing in a kind of blues cover band at the age of 15. We called ourselves - it was a terrible name - the Blue Zoots. We couldn't actually get our hands on zoot suits, nor did we dress in blue. We did covers of Screamin' Jay Hawkins and kind of Blues Brothers repertoire stuff. "

" The more I come to L.A., the more it's amazing. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I know I'm not the kind of music that's going to have tons of screaming fans, and I'm not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. I just want to do as good a job as I can. "

" I would love to get in trouble with the Catholic Church. I'm not religious myself, but my issue is with the organization. It's an organization of men - it's not about faith. "

" It was a rural upbringing by the seaside. A real quiet place surrounded by fields. I had to travel into town for school and stuff like that. "

" Religion wasn't imposed on me. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I'm uncomfortable with selfies and status updates documenting mundane pieces of my life, which I don't think should be of interest to anyone else. "

" I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death: a death of everything. You kind of watch yourself die in a wonderful way, and you experience for the briefest moment - if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes - everything you believed about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense. "

" By nature, I'm an awkward person; I'm a gangly introvert. "

" I think all that we would know of America back home is foreign policy, and maybe the snippets of the madness of political culture. "

" I think marriage is a scary concept. It's a scary concept for anybody. I'm not sure where I sit with that. "

" Someone had an eye on me as I was leaving high school. I had a chance to record demos, but they were kind of wanting to make a pop singer out of me, of the 'X Factor' variety. I didn't feel comfortable with it. I wanted to be a songwriter. "

" I've been a total Tom Waits dork for a long, long time. "

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

" I remember one of the first albums I got was an album called 'Thin Lizzy: Live and Dangerous.' "

" I just hate getting my hair cut. "

" I try to face things without regret, or make sure that I'm happy with things and leave nothing unsaid if I can. "