I'm not Catholic but the Virgin Mary fascinates me because she's like a folk hero.

When Britney shaves off all her hair and beats paparazzi with umbrellas - that's what celebrities are supposed to do. They're not supposed to be reasonable, middle-aged guys drinking organic tea talking about semiotics.

When I was a drunk, New York was the greatest place in the world. You walk everywhere, everything is open until four in the morning, and people go to New York looking for debauchery.

For some reason New York is the epicentre for people who hate me. Maybe this is another reason why I left New York but I get more hatred directed towards me there than any other place.

A part of me wants to sort of try and sound cool and feed this myth that I'm some sort of glamorous lothario, but I was raised by women - my mother and her mother and my aunts - and as a result, most of my friends have always been women.

If a musician is making a mediocre, self-indulgent body of work, they have to know that, for the most part, people aren't going to be interested.

One can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book.