It's a funny thing having a recording be part of your career. It means you can go back and revisit yourself, in a way most people don't.

I didn't really intend on having a music career. It just kind of happened.

Back in '98 or so when I was in film school I was working on lighting for a movie in Georgia, out in the middle of nowhere at a gas station. Inside the gas station they had a bunch of old home remedies like castor oil, and one of them was a protein supplement called Beef, Iron & Wine. I just dropped the Beef part.

The things that have been most popular with people have always been a total surprise, and so I've never felt like I could really truthfully predict public taste, so why bother?

I wasn't a happy teacher, but I also wasn't an absolute psychopath like the teachers I portray on screen.

I'm always amazed how many politicians have a very unlikely story, and when I talk to groups of students, I remind them that not everybody who gets into politics is a lawyer or went to school to study it. We all come to it for different reasons.

I grew up with a single pair of shoes until I grew into the next size. My parents believed in the American dream and the power of education but didn't have the money to send me to college. I realized early on that I needed to go against the flow and be better than everyone else to support my family.

Don't go into any store that features shopping bags that can stand on their own accord in the middle of a table. This sort of shopping bag denotes prices that will start chipping into your children's college education fund. Avoid it.