Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

I like home recordings and studio recordings just as much as each other - I don't think one is better - but for this record I wanted to see what I could do in a real studio with real producers.

I didn't know how many people knew who Ferdinand was.

I didn't think I was gonna be playing on the Oscars or anything.

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

I wondered if I would talk about drug use. But I guess, why hide it?

But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.

I rode on a float in one of the parades in Mississippi. It's an experience.

It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin.

I was coming off of a lot of psyche meds and other things.

It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning.

My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.

If you play acoustic guitar you're the depressed, sensitive guy.

I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place.

It touches on drug use. I got caught up in that for almost two years.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record.

I just wanted to move out of Portland to do something.

I didn't have a hard time making it, I had a hard time letting it go.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that seems more important than something designed to raise money to keep something going that keeps IV drug users from dying.

There are lots of things I like about playing in a band, the things I can't do by myself you know.

I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.

The band's filter, but playing live is a lot of fun.

I mean people just have a way of - y'know they'll review your record in two sentences and put you in this little stupid box that you don't want to be in.

Because God only knows why people like what they like and don't like something else.

And I'm not trying to write heavy songs.

I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.

Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.

What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.

I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.

From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.

The idea of licking stamps seemed great fun for me.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

It's slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.

As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.

So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.

I'm into the idea of responsibility and edification and these things have found me and I have found them. I wanted to be in the movie and I made it known to Mike.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

Many of the Europeans who want Israel to go away don't even know why they do. Nearly a third of those interviewed concede they have no idea what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. It's enough to know that Israelis are Jews.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.