Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm not just going to hug every person that asks to hug me.
My music doesn't sound punk, but I see it as a punk action.
I feel like the cosmos implies mystery, or infinite secrets.
I think I'm always changing as a writer and trying new things.
Around seventh grade, I got a guitar and forgot everything else.
Everyone on the Internet is sad. Why else would they be on the Internet?
I meet a lot of people after shows, and I have to say it's pretty intense.
I don't really understand how to do bureaucratic things - school-system things.
I think that I'm definitely going to keep writing music forever. I can't stop even if I tried.
I try to not assume things are sexism. I'm trying to be good natured about why things are happening.
I feel like I can't write something that has a real emotion in it if I can't connect to that emotion.
When I was younger, my view of New York was really wide-eyed and excited. I've lived here all my life.
My parents have both done some music stuff. My family was very artist-friendly, so that was encouraging.
I've definitely gotten to the point where we get to the venue, and people know that I'm in charge of the band.
Sometimes I'll write something that's purely autobiographical, and sometimes pure fiction, and sometimes a mix.
I love going to weddings. I love movie scenes of weddings. Even, like, TV-show weddings - I cry at every wedding.
Once you're in a position where you can choose to not be around toxic environments, just do that as much as you can.
I go through phases sometimes: 'I'm a genius; they get me,' and sometimes I'm like, 'Why does anyone want to hear me?'
It's funny: 'Next Thing' was written in a time of my life when I was actually really naive and thought that I was wise.
I started going to rock shows at a really young age, and seeing other young people make music definitely influenced me.
I played piano for a lot of my childhood and stupidly quit. I wish I hadn't - I could have been a great classical pianist!
Writing songs about it is a really useful way for me to love New York more, and stay observing it, and not just zone it out.
I was thinking about New York and realized how much I hate walking around in the winter and how much I dread getting on the train.
You meet a lot of people in New York who are different than you, and have different stories, so I see everyone as super individual.
Whenever I'm really excited about a song, I want to learn it, and it becomes the first thing I play every time I pick up an instrument.
I definitely think that touring is a really crazy lifestyle and makes it hard to live a normal life and have relationships and friendships.
I'm trying to do what Frank O'Hara did and remind myself there there's a lot of good stuff. I write about New York for my own mental health.
My Bandcamp had a lot of bad and good music, but I relied on that to sort my feelings. My sadness will always be there, even in the happiness.
My parents listened to a lot of James Taylor and Hall and Oates. My mom and I used to listen to Liz Phair and Indigo Girls a lot in the car, too.
I think part of the process of putting out a record is always looking back because, by the time a song comes out, it's been a year since you wrote it.
I feel like touring is a man's game. And I don't think that's sexist; I just think, on tour, you can't really take care of yourself the way you want to.
One of the cool things about traveling and being a musician is that you meet so many people who have studied different things and have different careers.
My brother was 13 when people started telling me that he was a 'hipster.' I was 11 and thought it was so stressful, like, 'How do you not be called that?'
I hope people hear my songs and realize that writing music is kind of easy, or that taking your sadness and turning it into a beautiful song is worthwhile.
What I really care about is writing... Some people feel about touring the way I feel about writing, which is, 'Whoa, I can't believe I get to do this as a job.'
I knew that 'Next Thing' was an angry album while I was making it. But I thought that it was angry the way that you get in a fight, not angry as a huge life change.
The thing is, I feel like it would defeat the purpose of being a musician if I let any kind of fear of failure affect my songwriting or making an album or whatever.
When I was 18, I borrowed my parents' car, and they are super supportive. They might give us snacks for the road, but it's not like they are paying clubs to book us.
It was a really long process, dropping out of college. I was there for a semester, then I would take a semester off and go on tour, then I would go back for a semester.
If I could have a record that represents every stage of my life, I'd be putting out one a month. Everything is always changing, and so is the way that I feel about stuff.
There are some people I've met and it's stressful just speaking to them, because they're really pretentious and I don't know how to talk to them without being pretentious back.
I don't actually have problems dealing with corporate situations. There are times I've railed against it, but there are other times when I'm like, 'I'll take your money, no problem.'
Those emotions that are really strong, the ones that inspire a song, you can hold onto that. You can let it marinate for years and keep writing about it even better than you did then.
I can be very social, but often, it weighs down on me later that the social thing was a put-on. I feel like my way of dealing with not wanting to go out is, I just don't. I can't bring myself to.
I don't even know how people managed without the Internet years ago. Having to mail a cassette tape of your music to strangers over the course of months... I just can't imagine having to do that.
You meet a lot of people in New York who are different than you and have different stories, so I see everyone as super individual. I feel like I can be infinitely inspired because New York is huge.
I feel like I can be infinitely inspired because New York is huge. There's always a new street I can go to, or a billion new people who I haven't met that I could write about. New York is very humbling.
I was seeing kids my age playing shows at their parents' houses or the couple of all-ages venues that existed. I feel like I saw so many different kinds of music that I wouldn't have discovered on my own.
Performing is something that has really grown on me and become an important part of my life, which I didn't used to feel. I didn't used to want to really perform live a lot. It's been an interesting adjustment.
I'm always the one sitting at the merch table and talking to everyone at the show - and I think it's because I have this deep fear that if I'm not approachable or I'm not there, people are going to think I'm a brat.