Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

To deny a genocide because of convenience and expediency having to do with an illegal war or occupation in Iraq to me, is double hypocritical.

The most important thing about music that I've learned after all this time is that to me, it's a way of reaching the truth.

In the last few years I've been listening to jazz more than anything else. I listen to a lot of world music and experimental here and there.

You can say a lot more with a poem than you can with a song, but with a song you can really be more powerful with it. You can express it a lot more powerfully.

Nations are like people. Once you understand the interactions between nations, it's easy to understand why things are done, in terms of foreign policy, in a certain way. But nations are not like people in the sense that we are cumulatively represented by others - and their interpretations of what our interests are may not be the same as what they really are. And that's what's dangerous, even in a democracy.

I really feel like civilisation's already over. It's not ending but it's already done. We're all addicted to the concept that humanity equals civilisation and that's not the case. We need a global conversation to be able to decipher how we can live from this point forward. We have to redefine our relationship with our environment.