Ezra Furman

“I could write a joke song really easily, but I think something that might be true for my generation is that there's a certain irony or detachedness expected of us, even though we really feel sincere. So the only way to sincerity is through a joke.”

“Listening to songs is like eating and writing songs is like vomiting. You're putting a ton of stuff in, it combines in unpredictable ways, and comes back out in a big mess.”

“I've been writing songs since I was a teenager, so one kind of song I've written a lot is about, I don't know, teen angst feelings - feeling unsure of yourself and immature.”

“I honestly feel like I've been mostly toiling in obscurity until a little bit after 'Day Of the Dog' came out.”

“My two most fervent interests are pop music and traditional Judaism. Hell of a pair of fervent interests.”

“Not only am I a shy person, I take a little while to say what I mean, especially in a social situation, and usually those move too fast for me to say anything at all.”

“Learning that someone is gay, queer, trans, doesn't tell you much by itself. They could be any kind of person aside from that particular slice of identity.”

“It's always about staying competitive with myself... Popularity is something that may happen from time to time, and I don't trust it and I don't think it means too much. I'm going for greatness.”

“I was thinking very carefully about going into education, becoming a teacher, maybe becoming a rabbi.”

“I don't really worship the album 'Transformer.' It's not the best thing that Lou Reed has done.”

“There is something embarrassing about asking for money, but if I hadn't done that, I would have not continued to be a professional musician.”

“Far from being a showbiz gimmick, for me dressing as I please has signalled the end of a lifelong performance of straightforward masculinity.”

“We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.”

“Just being gender non-conforming opens you to trouble from strangers. And violence.”

“To have knowledge of Judaism and to be a religious Jew or an interested Jew, is to have a doorway into a worldview that is entirely alien to the rest of the world's worldview.”

“Sometimes there's a day where I don't feel good being out in the world, and I feel unsafe in the world in general. And an anxiety about just showing up in the world. It's kind of irrational, but people do say things to me out in the street about how I'm dressed.”

“In terms of keeping kosher, I've basically just been vegetarian. I want to be fully vegetarian anyway, though sometimes my mom makes chicken soup and I have to eat it. I just love it.”

“I'm a big fan of Louis CK - I think he's a master of standup.”

“My main theme as a songwriter seems to be a feeling of homelessness, of being in motion. The feeling of being somehow unmoored, a radical internal freedom that is very painful and also joyful.”

“I was rather obsessed with angels.”