I started dancing when I was three, Scottish dancing.

It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from.

Ignore reality, there's nothing you can do about it.

Happy songs are very difficult to write. How many truly great upbeat songs are there?

I can understand why some people might look at me and say, 'What's she got to be depressed about?' I get that a lot in Britain, where mental health issues seem to be a big taboo.

I'm such a chameleon. I never get bored.

Saving animals is as simple as choosing synthetic alternatives instead of real fur.

If I start feeling down I'll gorge myself on pasta. That usually does the trick. It's the Italian blood in me.

Enjoy every moment: you never know when things might change.

It was only cool to have blond hair and be a surfer chick [in Sydney]. I could learn how to surf, but I still looked Italian. It took me a long time to realize that was a good thing.

Isolation is a big part of songwriting.

It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it.

No one is only one thing, my dear.

Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.

To talk about religion except in terms of human psychology is an irrelevance.

I don't like to be different; I would like to be the same.

My writing has developed drastically . The Return of the Prodigal Son is the most important thing I've done, and my most mature book.

Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write.

My father was from the South and turned me into a news junkie at a very early age. I would sit and watch TV with him.

Take it from somebody who has been around for a million years: When you get right down to it, food is practically the whole story every time.

Love is a dangerous commodity-fraught with peril.