During the lifetime of Japan I became very neurotic, very paranoid.

The public so often want to freeze the artist in a moment in time when they were at their peak, and they want the artist to revisit it over and over again as if it was something authentic.

I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally.

I don't listen to a lot of music any more and even the people I've loved for years - the Nick Drakes of this world - I can't go back to them and listen to them over and over.

Zen Buddhism is a discipline where belief isn't necessary.

Sometimes a little compromise isn't a bad thing. You don't need to be precious about it.

People are afraid to ask musicians to be involved in projects because they anticipate being turned down. Young artists hesitate before contacting me. People in my position don't get approached often enough.

It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs.

Creating a decent pop song is a challenge - and occasionally, once in every decade - it's kind of fun to do that.

I think nowadays it doesn't really matter where we are physically located. We create our own culture around us to a large extent, whether it's what we're listening to, what we're watching, what we're reading - it can have very little to do with one's immediate cultural environment. We are in a global culture in that respect.