“It’s a tough thing to know that when you’re making your album, you’re going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.”

I could probably live in Bali the rest of my life and completely live in the sticks and have a f – king moped and make a record every couple of years and not step in public and break even like I do anyway. That’s really tempting.

You never know when you put out an album that’s unique whether it’ll get beat up for it or not.

I’m older than I was, and I’m still washed-up, and I haven’t changed my music one iota. It’s just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.

The nice thing about age is worrying less and less about what people think.

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.

Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute.

Poetry is very crafted. You can’t have too many words. It needs compression. It has to be spare, just the right number of words.

It seems to me that there must be an ecological limit to the number of paper pushers the Earth can sustain.

We can learn from IBM’s successful history that you don’t have to have the best product to become number one.

In absolute terms, we may have to look at restricting the number of flights people take.

I like ’50s and ’60s American art. I have 85 or 90 Warhols.

A mathematician’s reputation rests on the number of bad proofs he has given.

Hep is a very dangerous disease that can cause a number of permanent conditions, including death, which is extremely permanent.