“When someone really goes to tell you something about what they’re thinking, they’re going to wear that experience with them. That’s what you have to share.”

I think alcohol is a good drug for me when I’m writing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with it. I can stop for a few weeks, so I think it’s okay. I don’t think it’s good for my liver, but I do love it. It’s a huge part of my life, and it makes me happy.

Everyone, when you’re a teenager and you’re growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it’s not.

People learn at the rate they are going to learn.

The cruelest lies are often told without a word The kindest truths are often spoken, never heard

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I’ve got Joni Mitchell records, and they’re great, and I couldn’t possibly be that good.

Even though I live in America more, I feel like when I go to Adelaide, that’s when I get to go home.

It’s like being in the position of – in half of the industry’s mind, you’re kind of a cult-following, independent rocker. And on the other hand, you’re a sellout. But neither one of them are right.

I’m definitely an anomaly, but I’m making things. They’re selling, say, martinis, and I’m kind of making vintage Riesling.

To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it’s asking a lot of someone who’s used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.

Everybody knows it hurts to grow up…and we’re still fighting it.

I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see.

Rock and roll is – and should be – a kid’s place.

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there’s a lot of subtlety. That’s what I’m proud of.

Now that I have found someone, I’m feeling more alone… than I ever have before.

Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible – it wasn’t an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.

A lot of 18-year-olds are like old men. They think they’ve seen everything.

And ah, you know, something about the beat was really cool, and Madonna, visually, was on TV all the time and I thought she was just so beautiful.

Coming up with something new and original is so exciting.

I believe that when people say something is impossible, it’s only impossible because a strategy has not been found yet.

Of having seen something large and having found the right words to say it small, small enough to enter an individual mind so that the strong ideas of what the words are saying sound like sweet reason.

The overwhelming and underlying desire for something truly terrible to happen so that you could have something really hot to talk about – was still startling.

If you’re being attacked from all sides, it’s possible you’re doing something right; it’s also possible that you are doing everything wrong.

That they chose the path of the mind suggests that there is on it something more worthwhile than a circuitous route to the good things that the good-looking get just by showing up

In Canada, the U.S. and most of Europe it may be easy to take political stands, this is something for which you can be forced to pay with your life, or your freedom, in many other parts of the world, from Iran to Russia to Pakistan to China.