"Playing things too safe is the most popular way to fail."
"I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can."
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Source: Song: Let's Get Lost, Album: From a Basement on the Hill, 2004
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"I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place."
"But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees."
"I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television."
"Theres a bunch of Elvis Costello records that made all the difference between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. A freak among other freaks"
"I didn't have a hard time making it. I had a hard time letting it go."