In America there's a tendency to write the same book over and over because that's what sells. So in a way, my success in America has come at the expense of what I do. I haven't sold out, and I haven't taken the popular road to writing a best-selling book. I've really bucked the system. So it was necessary for me not to go and find the easy fans, the ones who want something digestible and fast with a happy ending that they can read over and over again no matter how many different books it is. I had to find fans who really wanted to think. Worldwide they all have that in common.

I live for CAN-ing other people's can'ts.

If I was on an island, just for melody, I would take albums by the Stones, AC/DC and the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile.

We believed anything worth doing was worth over-doing

The secret to enlightenment is to lighten up. Whether you are talking rock or women, all there.

Everybody loves you because you are brilliantly awkward.

The band's never taken a year off. Last August we decided to take one, and three months in I was bored to tears.