My records are basically a litany of complaints against the world, and I'm quite like that in real life as well.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

Some are exploring the world through the subconscious. I've done that on occasions for various reasons, whether it be illness or self abuse, or whatever. Once things start to look grotesque I don't write them or sing them. I couldn't write them - making nightmares into living daylight...The minute it gets dark I shoot back, retreat.

If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that.

The older I get, the more I feel those kinds of ghosts - especially the women in my life - moving out of the shadows a bit more and becoming more present in my life.

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.

You know, an idea is just an idea. There seems to... the kind of epiphanies that you have, like the little sudden bursts of light, they're very small and they're very short and it's the pursuit of the idea that's the important thing. . . . I know a lot of people who have way better ideas than I do that-much more frequently than I do that just can't sit down and actually do it. Ideas are such are a little overrated really; it's the work behind the idea that's the important thing.