Glen Hansard

Do I create conflicts for myself? Sure I do. ”

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money. ”

I choose to believe that there is good in people and that everything is a lesson. Our place on Earth is to go deeper, to somehow get wiser. To have spirit. ”

The moment of drifting into thought has been so clipped by modern technology. Our lives are filled with distraction with smartphones and all the rest. People are so locked into not being present. ”

My dad was quiet, angry, shut down. So my thing is: I express everything that's there. I want to get it all out. ”

I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. ”

Well, playing a guy who writes songs and busks on Grafton Street in Dublin and falls in love with Marketa Irglova wasn't very difficult for me. There was very little acting going on. ”

I love the idea of leaving some of the original abstract thought in, because the problem is that when you pick up a pen you become a snob, your own worse critic. You edit yourself in a way that is non-creative. ”

This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid. ”

Sometimes you give birth to something or you're part of a team that gives birth to an idea, and it grows and has a whole life of its own, and you feel grateful. It's just so humbling. ”