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" As Australians, we see the law as inherently bad. We have a real inherent distaste for authority in our makeup. "

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" 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 write hate lyrics really well. It's not every day you can use them, really. "

" Writing is a necessary thing for me, just to keep myself level. It has beneficial effects on my life. "

" I've spent my life butting my head against other people's lack of imagination. "

" 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. "

" I lost my innocence with Johnny Cash. I used to watch the 'Johnny Cash Show' on television in Wangaratta when I was about 9 or 10 years old. At that stage I had really no idea about rock n' roll. I watched him, and from that point I saw that music could be an evil thing - a beautiful, evil thing. "

" Texting is apocalyptic on some level. It's a reduction of things. "

" Guns are part of the American psyche, aren't they? This is collateral damage for having a Wild West mentality. It's intrinsic to the American psyche. It's never going to change. "

" There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe. "

" What I'm resistant to is the 'Walk the Line' biopic, where you have this redemptive life done in two hours. It just doesn't wash with me. I've been there and things don't work out that way. "

" If you look around, complacency is the great disease of your autumn years, and I work hard to prevent that. "

" The big problem with songwriting for me is starting a new song. It's the thing where all the anguish exists, not in the writing of the song, but the starting of the new song. What do I write about? I never know. "

" One of my big fears is drying up, and the more I create, the more I feel myself shrinking beneath the backlog of work I've done. "

" A rock musician's career is short-lived. To extend it, you need to do other things to keep yourself fresh. "

" I love performing. I can get to be that person I always wanted to be - godlike. "

" I don't really do Japanese interviews. I don't think there's much call for me in Japan. "

" To my undying shame, I do read reviews. I don't read them all, but I like to get some kind of idea how things are going. "

" 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. "

" I've always worn suits. To me they're a very practical kind of thing to wear. You put one on and don't really have to think about what you're going to wear. "

" I have an armchair interest in gardening, but I don't like to get my knees dirty. I don't have a garden. "

" I used to believe that if I could do certain things - write a book or be a successful musician - that I'd be transformed into a happy person, but it doesn't work that way. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Writing screenplays makes me a better musician because it clears my head. After writing a movie, I go running back to music as fast as I can. "

" When you're making a film, there are so many people involved that you get opinions and notes from people and you don't even know who they are. I find that quite difficult and it wears you down. "

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

" I was reading The Bible a lot through my 20s, mostly the Old Testament, just because I was knocked out by the language and the stories. I felt that the God being talked about there, who was this insane, vindictive patriarch - it was kind of thrilling, and titillated something in me at the time. "

" The blues is instilled in every musical cell that floats around your body. "

" Self-editing is the way I write. Ten verses of a song and it's finished. Then we start playing it and if I see that it's too long, I'll start cutting. "

" There's always pain around. That's one thing you can guarantee in life - there will always be a surplus of pain. "