I don't keep a journal anymore. I did when I was a teenager, but now because I write about it all in my songs, that's what I'm really doing.

I'm in a contented, loving relationship, but that doesn't mean I'm not struggling with other things that are going on around me in the world.

The perfect man? A poet on a motorcycle.

I think we start suffering as soon as we come out of the womb. I think that people tend to stereotype. When they think of suffering, they think of abuse - physical abuse, emotional abuse, poverty, that kind of thing. There's different levels of suffering. I don't think that it has to do with how much money you have - if you were raised in the ghetto or the Hamptons. For me it's more about perception: self-perception and how you perceive the world.

Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.

I'm not just a doormat. I'm not just being stepped on all over the place. If you look at the bulk of my material, it's about trying to find some strength through that.

I write first for myself as a therapeutic process, to get stuff out and to deal with it.