There's always a part of my brain saying: 'Stop getting comfortable. Don't relax.' Because I find it difficult to write when I'm happy. I have to go out there and get battered up and bruised to write anything. I have to feel something.

You don't have to be as good a writer to write a song it's a very different process to writing straight prose. To learn how to write prose takes a lot of years of practice.

I've never really not played the piano. I've played it since I was six or seven and it's something I've always done - I don't think I could ever really play anything else, I would be a bit out of it without a piano.

Throughout my entire life, I constantly tried to fight normality. I hate it. I hate the idea of it. I hate routine. I hate anything that feels remotely regular or right.

I really want to come back! I definitely want to come back. Some of my fondest memories are in New Zealand.

What ever your doing right now, whatever your thinking, or worrying about. stop. take a huge breathe in, and just enjoy being alive.

Songs are about just being totally honest and putting those words to music.

If people stop being interested it's because you haven't written a good enough album. Music will always be the most powerful thing. It doesn't matter what record labels or journalists say. It's the song.

I think music moves me more than other people. I can hear a song and it can bring me to tears. It doesn't happen the whole time, but I find songwriting - songs - very, very moving. I always have and I don't think it's fading.

I think particularly in music, popularity os a very fickle thing. You're only as good as your last song.

I'm so used to it, I think I'd feel very naked on stage without a piano.

I think music is better listened to with other people. Music is better shared. It depends what situation you're in - if it's a song by Tom Waits, it can be nice to be on your own, but if it's something slightly more upbeat, it's amazing to be around people.

The sound is very much always in my head, I have to get the sound out of my head onto the recording.

I love the band Haim. I would love to do something with them.

I don't really like over-explaining the songs. Everyone constantly asks what the songs are about, and I think the thing is that the songs definitely all have stories in them it's just nice to let people decide what they are. I think it's important that people hear it themselves rather than having me annotate it.