The object of religion is the imagination, that deep and inexhaustible font of our understanding and symbolizing our deepest possibilities.

We not only romanticize the future; we have also made it into a growth industry, a parlor game and a disaster movie all at the same time.

The perception of the horizon is an earthbound event; all horizons disappear in space, and we are left shorn of the sweet roots that have held us to the earth, challenged to imagine what is truly present just before us, a unified and seemingly limitless universe.

We encounter and enter our richest, most humanly defining experiences by way of a tear in the fabric of things, because we are running late, or because we recognize, across a crowded room, a face whose lack of perfection allows a unique light to shine through and to stir us with uncommon wonder.

The openness of rural Nebraska certainly influenced me. That openness, in a way, fosters the imagination. But growing up, Lincoln wasn't a small town. It was a college town. It had record stores and was a liberal place.

At the moment of death, when the seed atom in the heart is ruptured, which contains all the experience of the past life in a panoramic picture, the spirit leaves its physical body, taking with it the finer bodies.

I'm not interested in writing overtly autobiographical songs. I would rather explore interesting stories. I like the idea of the songs being evocative and distinctive, so I have in my mind the atmosphere that a film could evoke. I like to think of them existing in their own little world.

I learned early in life that laughter is a great way to diffuse and uncomfortable situation, so I began to use that as a tool, throughout my life.