When you're young, you just go banging about, but you're more sensitive as you grow older.

When you're young, you just go banging about, but you're more sensitive as you grow older.

I studied voice for three months to get rid of my English accent. I changed my hair to blonde. I knew I could be sexy if I had to.

I am really rather like a beautiful Jersey cow, I have the same pathetic droop to the corners of my eyes.

All successful people these days seem to be neurotic. Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me - for being so confounded normal.

Personally, I think if a women hasn't met the right man by the time she's 24, she may be lucky.

I respect anyone who has to fight and howl for his decency.

Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.

Music is a lot more like solving an intricate puzzle with moments of pure, random creative bliss... whereas painting is much more purely random creative bliss with moments of problem solving.

The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.

The smallest gesture can mean to much to those who may need a little lift in their lives.

Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect for I, also?'

If we don't fight for what we 'stand for' with our passionate words and honest actions, do we really 'stand' for anything?

Desire then is the invasion of the whole self by the wish, which, as it invades, sets going more and more of the psychical processes; but at the same time, so long as it remains desire, does not succeed in getting possession of the self.

Just coming from a musical family, I was always surrounded by it. On the car rides to school, my mom loved playing A Tribe Called Quest and the Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' and then my dad was listening to a lot of Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder.

As a writer, I always try as hard as possible to get out of the way of the story, so maybe that's the most important thing my readers should know - I'm all about the story, not about the ego.

As somebody who visits countless schools, I see firsthand the dire situation our educational system faces.

We don't put our emotions out there in Japan. I'm Japanese, but I love to be honest.

When I was a kid, I would make these incredibly bloody movies in my back yard. I was constantly making weird blood concoctions; Jell-O and milk was a good one. I was constantly ruining clothes and staining my parents' walls and stuff.

Be generous with your time and money - it has an amazingly fast payback. Be in the moment with everyone you love - and this frequently means tuning out work completely. And drive slow in parking lots.

If I loved all the world as I do you, I shouldn't write books to it: I should only write letters to it, and that would be only a clumsy stage on the way to entire telepathy.

When I got into the music industry, I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image, do my own hair, do my own makeup.

My mom and dad were divorced, and although they got along very well, my mom thought American television was reprehensible, so I was raised on the BBC. I kind of agreed with her. We watched American news, though.

I hate working out - I have to mentally push myself through it. I can get very whiny, saying things like, 'I can't do it!'

There is nothing more difficult to define than an aphorism.

At the surface, many people's goals are to lose weight, tone up, feel better, etc. But superficial goals get superficial results that usually fade. Dig a little deeper, and the 'why' is usually unveiled: to be more confident, to be more happy, to feel sexy again.

I'm a perfectionist and, when it comes to people I want to work with, I have changed my mind, like, millions of times.

When you're dressing on a budget, simplicity is key.

I have made a few mistakes with my temper, I know. But I have learned from that.

I was a ballplayer, but only for a limited time. I grew up playing in Wisconsin. It's a very sports-centric part of the country that I grew up in and I played a lot of sports, but baseball first and foremost. I played through high school. I was a middle-infielder.

I see it as my duty in some way is to be out in the world as an Australian putting forward what I consider to be authentic Australian music.