There's really not much in life that's as violent or traumatic as an encounter with somebody who really surprises you and opens up that strange dynamic that's involved in romantic love.

Working in film, I'm sure you have insight into this, there's something great that only comes by way of interactions with others that a monastic life does not afford.

Various people have put forth that love is the scene of two, that it's not about unity, it's about two absolutely disjunct positions encountering each other. So here, even with something like sex-- what [that song's] about-- you could never become one.

I'm against eating a human being alive - I don't do it. Somebody might make cannibalism jokes and laugh it off like it's nothing. I don't agree with that. I want to proclaim a rejection of cannibalism.

I'm steeped in aesthetic theory, so I tend to bring in my own amateurish way of baring a little bit - when, in practice, I'm not thinking about that when I'm working over the keyboard, or musing over musical ideas in my head. But when discussing it, we want to have some new thought about this new music.

In all the music I've done, what I'm really interested in above all else, and I'm not sure it's what one should be interested in, is the kind of - you know, people talk about work progressions, which doesn't really make sense with pop music because there is no progression, because there is no tonic, because there is no more tonality.

The categories of woman and man are too rigid. They're going to give way to new forces. They already have, to a degree, but for most of us, this drama held sway, and we assumed our positions.

I really try as hard as I can on the show. If people can't see my face, if they can't see my sweat beads or at least that I'm struggling, that I'm not just pretending or going through the motions, then who can blame them for thinking that it's some kind of ridiculous piss-take?

The man believes the woman's got the hidden secret. That's a rare thing. You meet lots of people, and they're all deserved of love, of course, but romantic love involves some kind of supplement: she has the secret. That's what's desired.

I don't really know what playing is. There's a way to do it correctly, but it eludes me. I think getting in front of an audience is definitely a good way to focus in on the real dimension of the activity, the most important dimension.

Musical acts that feign enthusiasm for what they're doing the guitarist who jumps up and down, like it's choreographed are so transparently vacuous.

I think it's better to just say nothing at all than to just send two words.

Maybe this is blasphemy to say, but I feel like music is not meant to be something that earning your keep depends on because it cheapens it and it will force you into making decisions in the interest of earning your keep, as opposed to the interest of the thing itself.

I don't mean to romanticise the struggle, that leads to all kinds of terrible violence and absurdities that are even worse than the perverse immediate gratification.

I'm sure a handful of people can relate to that experience of having some kind of romantic encounter - the event of love - which they just can't shake. They take it with them, despite their own desire, and it continually haunts them, and there's nothing to be done about it. That's a true rarity.