I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me.

I was always extremely independent growing up.

There were times when I was terrified to go to school because it felt like a jail sentence.

Culturally, it's really funny to me that people respect the weird guy as an artist. There can be a curmudgeon in the corner with spiders building nests in his hair, and he hasn't bathed for three weeks, but for whatever reason, he's more creative than the guy sitting next to him that's showered and is talking to everybody.

A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures.

God did not intend the human family to be wafted to heaven on flowery beds of ease.

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.

I'm a rock god? I'm five foot seven. I had me jaw broken, and so my chin stuck way out. That's how I became tough - I learned to pick up anything and fight back... A rock god!