I tell everyone I interact with what I'm working on and let them bring me anecdotes that illustrate my themes.

When I first used to tour, guys would come up and say, 'Where's the fight club in my area?' and I would say, 'There isn't one.' And they'd say, 'No, no, you can tell me, you can tell me.'

'Romance' is based on my entire creative process. I fall in love with an idea, obsess over it, isolate myself with it, and when I eventually introduce it to my friends, they all tell me that it's stupid.

Give me rampant intellectualism as a coping mechanism.

You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.

Think about George Orwell's three-minute hate from the novel '1984' and how that left everyone sort of exhausted and able to live their boring humdrum lives. If our lives are going to continue being unfulfilled and boring, perhaps we do need some sort of short-term violent chaos incorporated into them, to make them more palatable.