In any social situation I'd much rather be on the periphery of things than at the centre. When I'm standing at the edge I'm comfortable in my own skin. When I'm standing in the middle it's all confusion.

I grew up with gossip mags commenting on how I looked.

I like everything to be natural... believable.

The last thing I ever wanted to get involved with is Hollywood. The way it works is that people get an idea you could possibly do something, but there's a one-in-a-hundred chance that it could get made.

I've always been at war with the guitar. All vocalists are fighting a war with the electric rhythm guitar.

I consider myself to be first and foremost a comic writer. The way I entertain myself - especially in those long and grim hours in the office - is to write stuff I find funny.

At the end, we're kind of observers - creative people, I mean. I feel like an observer, and I'm pretty much able to step out of things and see how things are playing out.

I don't write happy songs. Who does? I don't know anybody who writes happy songs, really.

I'm an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American - blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.

I've always had an obligation to creation, above all.

I've always felt like an imposter, in the whole, as a musician.

I know when I sit with my band members and we're playing back a song that we've done, I know that they're experiencing it in a completely different way and hearing stuff that they're alerted to because the way the interpret the world is through their ears. Mine is through my eyes.

At school I was an anti-magnet for women.

The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new.

You can't trust an artist that just makes good records.

When I perform onstage, I'm actually kind of nearsighted, so I don't have any real, true understanding of what the audience is like.

With writing a song, I've always felt, right from the start, like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't ever feel there's a font of ideas to fall back on.

The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.

I write a lot, and very often I write a couple of lines that are particularly revealing in some kind of way. And then as a few more lines get added and a piece gets added, eventually the song pretty much takes over and you can't really find a way to change those things.

Songs you can dip in and out of, but a book... well, it can overpower you.

The only person who can say they're happy getting old is someone who isn't actually old yet. Every day, I get less and less happy about that idea.

I love being manipulated by what I see. I love weepies and romantic comedies where you're reaching for the Kleenex at the right moment.

L.A. is full of screenwriters. I don't know why. On many levels, it's such a thankless occupation.

Personally I find the story of Christ incredibly moving.