Portland hardly got to have an identity before that identity became a joke - I live in a joke. Seattle at least got to wear out its identity before it became a joke.

I didn't mean to live in Portland. It was kind of an accident - I mean, the equivalent of my car breaking down there and me being like, 'Well... I guess this is what I'm doing. I just can't find a better alternate.'

[They still live in Portland, a Pacific Northwest city 150 miles south of Seattle.] Portland has pretensions to being culturally informed, ... I got enough to hire my cokehead friends to design it.

As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it's worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I'm trying to say. I can't 'Bono' it.

Even when I was a kid, I always showed up late for school every day. It got to the point where they had my late slips filled for every day of the school year in advance, so all they had to do was fill in what time I got there.

I like Modest Mouse. I'm our biggest fan. And enemy. I won't waste people's time by putting out a Modest Mouse record just because. That's fair, right?