I don't like those songs where you have to listen to a story to get into them. I don't want to have to pay attention to music in that way, I just want it to hit me in the heart and do what music's supposed to do.

I think I have always had a pretty strong creative impulse. And that has probably saved me from abandoning myself completely.

I don't believe in an interventionist God

I get criticized for a lot of what I write about, but as far as I'm concerned I'm actually standing up and having a look at what goes on in the minds of men, and I have the authority to talk about it because I'm a man.

Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can.

The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.

If you took love out of the equation, I wouldn't know what else to write about.