The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.

That's what we [outsiders] feel America is really about - the kind of crazed ravings of the Christian right - when it's probably something quite different.

That's what I like about watching a movie: you enter an imagined world that's more interesting, more engaging than your own. Or less painful than your own.

I have a very strange relationship in general with women around my music. There's some that understand it and some that think there should be a law against it.

Stars have their moments then they die.

Anything that I'm doing I'm writing specifically for a particular project.

Kylie Minogue is the greatest thing that has happened to Australian music.