I studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don't connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it's not a contradiction in my life.

Life isn't some vertical or horizontal line -- you have your own interior world, and it's not neat.

People like beauty and purity. They pretend that's what it's all about.

Music television is all about the media-oriented version of what it is to be a rock star; it's not about what Bob Dylan or Jimi Hendrix were about - which included great images, sure, but they had spiritual and political and revolutionary content, too.

I am not really certain how original my contribution to music is as I am obviously an amateur.

I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written Just Kids had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.

A lot of children don't have a developed aesthetic. I did. I made early choices in life, even about cloth; I liked flannel and not polyester.