Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure - after Guadalcanal he retreated at ours.

Pop music really is a love and a joy and a science [of songwriting].

There's a booming, rotating, never sleeping city in the center of my brain and no body can come in and I can't escape. I have a strange sense of pride that my brain works that way, but I'm also terrified of what would happen if I ever tried to think in another way.

If I want to hang out with people, they unfortunately need to be working as often as I am.

It usually takes me 20 to 90 minutes to write a song because once I start, I don't stop. I like when it's really organic, so I try to knock it out in one shot.

It doesn't matter how many private jets you take, how much money you make, how famous you get, keep putting in the hours.

The thing about being an artist is that you evolve so quickly, you grow, you learn, you change, you find yourself hating work that you made months prior. That's the hard part about making an album, but every couple days I fall asleep listening to my album front to back and I lay there feeling so proud of what I did.

Anyone who has been with me from the beginning has worked from the trenches with me and they've worked really hard. People that I have brought in where I am now, they haven't worked the way that we have, they haven't lost the sleep, and you know, the blood, sweat, and tears.

I wake up every day and think about what I am to other people. What I am to the people I employ, who depend on me to wake up and do my job that day and keep this career going? I think about what I am to the kids who listen to my music and all the other people involved in this project.