I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.

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

I keep my eyes closed a lot when I'm singing because sometimes it's distracting to see people.

The idea of forever is kind of ridiculous, which is unfortunate because it's kind of a nice thing to say, you know. I think it softens the blow of mortality and having to say goodbye to everything you know and everyone you love and all that kind of thing.

In theory, I always think I should totally go back to school, because I don't want to start sinking slowly... I want to learn, blah blah blah. Then I think about actually going and sitting in classes and, man, it sounds terrible.

On every Bright Eyes record, there's some kind of sound collage that begins it. Some of them have dialogue, some don't. I like it because it can kind of slow down the attention span a bit. It's a way to draw you in to the rest of the record.