Illusion never changed into something real.

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.

I think it is the duty of all human beings, as intelligent and communicative beings, to learn all the ideas thought up before ours and use them as a means to think up new ones.

Life becomes the way it is lived; and man may live the way he wants to live when he learns to think what he wants to think.

I don't think anyone could write about another culture and get it 100 percent accurate.

Without looking out of my window I could know the ways of heaven

As a matter of fact, it's in our interests that we help reformers across the Middle East achieve their objectives. This is the fundamental challenge of the 21st century.

History is the queen of the humanities. It teaches wisdom and humility, and it tells us how things change through time.

Can't react every time you're insulted. Free people absorb destructive things and refuse to be destroyed

If we had more sleepless nights in prayer, there would be far fewer souls to have a sleepless eternal night in hell.

Man is that guy ripped. I mean, I've got the washboard stomach, too. It's just that mine has about two months of laundry on top of it.

I play the radio and moon about...and dream of Utopias where its always July the 24th 1935, in the middle of summer forever.