The more I learn about stuff the more conscious I become of grave gaps in my knowledge.
I think I read too much Arthur Conan Doyle when I was young, and got this idea that a gentleman should know a lot about one thing and plenty about most everything else.
I crave music that’ll sort of hurtle me into space and release me up there.
Take dance music: I like enough of it and its history to be able to say a word or two about this or that record, but I’m nobody’s authority.
People will complain that they don’t want to wait around for lightning to strike, but why not? If you invest yourself in chance, the potential for disappointment is pretty low.
I don’t write my own publicity materials, I just read ’em and give ’em the OK.
I’m not really a goal-oriented guy. I started doing the Mountain Goats just for the sheer hell of it.
I grew up around some people whose parents toured a lot: tough on the marriage, tough on the kids.
I’ll keep making records until I don’t have more ideas for records.
I do have a romantic interest in outlasting everybody else. There’s a sort of sad machismo to singer-songwriters, I think.
I just started writing stuff to kill time on summer evenings. This is why I’m always telling people who ask me what they need to do to succeed to give up, do something else.
My work is more important than I am. I’m just some guy.
People want you to play the songs they know. I try not to reflect too much, and I don’t really like to focus too much on myself.
The process of touring is always so weird to me. Once you’ve made the album, that’s over, you move along.
Anything that is within you is a gift. To be able to take possession of that and say, “Whatever it is, I am bigger than it,” is to learn to cherish even the hard and painful things.
Life is hard, you’re tired, and there’s disease. The strategy that works for children is to be delighted by the things that delight you.
Diagnoses exist to help get people services they need – but there’s no such thing as mental illness. We’re all mentally ill.
Everybody is in various states of needing to transcend something. I believe in mental health care, but when we call people “crazy,” we exclude them from our circle.
Everybody experiences reality in a way that’s only true for them.
It’s impossible to be content all the time – you have to learn to be content in places where you’re unhappy and owning your emotions, whatever they are.