I wrote 'Pumped Up Kicks' when I began to read about the growing trend in teenage mental illness. I wanted to understand the psychology behind it because it was foreign to me.

I was always extremely independent growing up.

There were times when I was terrified to go to school because it felt like a jail sentence.

Culturally, it's really funny to me that people respect the weird guy as an artist. There can be a curmudgeon in the corner with spiders building nests in his hair, and he hasn't bathed for three weeks, but for whatever reason, he's more creative than the guy sitting next to him that's showered and is talking to everybody.

Americans are immensely popular in Paris; and this is not due solely to the fact that they spend lots of money there, for they spend just as much or more in London, and in the latter city they are merely tolerated because they do spend.

Without growth we can't pay down our debt, and without growth there's no money for welfare.

The British have been particularly shy about the issues of financial regulation, and attentive only to the interests of the City - hence their reluctance to see the introduction of a tax on financial transactions and tax harmonisation in Europe.

I'm first-generation money in my family.