“Presenting the American songbook as a living, breathing entity that's ...” — Chris Thile Quote

“Presenting the American songbook as a living, breathing entity that's expanding all the time is very important.”

“I love the string band. I love the sound of it, the possibilities of it, I love the physical sensation of creating and performing in it. It's my voice.”

“I was raised fundamentalist Christian, and now I'm not that. It was not an act of rebellion or anything. For me, it was about being in a line of work where I was meeting so many different people and feeling like they all had legitimate points of view that I needed to consider and occasionally these were at odds with ideas that I was raised with.”

“Having someone breathing on your neck can be good for you.”

“The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn't, it dies. It's important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.”

“Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing.”