The way I take in the world is by seeing it; that is very much evident in the songs that I write.

I write songs from the point of view I had at a time;I'm not tryingto write songs from a young person's point of view.That only ends in disaster.

A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh.

I'm a kind of hard-wired pessimist. I can't help but see the world in a certain kind of way.

Some people, myself in particular, have an adversarial relationship with the camera, and it sprouts up in every photograph.

We cannot afford to be idle. To act on a bad idea is better than to not act at all. Because the worth of the idea never becomes apparent until you do it. Sometimes this idea can be the smallest thing in the world, a little flame that you hunch over and cup with your hand, and pray will not be extinguished by all the storm that howls about it. If you could hold onto that flame, great things could construct around it, that are massive and powerful and world changing, all held up by the tiniest of ideas.

It's an Australian thing to be dismissive. We find that endearing. Americans don't. They believe what you say.