Courtney Barnett quotes:

I really want a Christmas in New York one year, when it's snowing. Like, it's Christmas morning, and you have a fight with someone, and you run down the street, and it's snowing, and you can't find them.

If I make a wrong decision, I worry what might have been. I stress out over very insignificant things.

Artists thrive off each other, and when you see other people doing cool stuff, it inspires you to do cool stuff.

When I started Milk! Records, it was a pretty non-profit making venture.

When I was on the road with Billy Bragg, it was cool because I was doing the whole thing solo and travel a lot by myself, which I quite like. I mean, I love being with friends, but it's kind of nice having that alone time.

I started writing songs when I started learning guitar.

The first song I wrote was called 'You,' and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist.

I'm self-deprecating - I spend a lot of time telling myself that things are OK, as opposed to having to tell myself to get over things.

I grew up listening to Nirvana and then went through some bad '90s pop stuff - a lot of Australian one-hit wonders.

What's funny about the slacker thing, people project an image of what they think a musician is: young, slack, unemployed - like a really romantic idea of a poet, writer or musician - which isn't really true a lot of the time. I don't reckon you would know anything about me if I wasn't moderately hard-working.

I grew up listening to hipster jazz and classical records... we went and watched ballet and orchestras - lots of cool stuff. Which I'm really grateful for - it's pretty nice being introduced to that when you're little.

I hate going anywhere. I'm really excited to travel and play all these different places, but if I had it my way, I would stay inside, maybe go to the back garden or walk around the corner to the shops. That's it.

People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your music.

Obviously, the more you tour, the more comfortable you get.

I just get bored really quickly and want to push myself to the next level.

I played in school jazz bands and tried to start rock bands, but nobody was interested.

Dad sometimes sends me texts saying, 'Just heard you on the radio, thumbs up', or whatever. So that's pretty cute.

If I write something down, it's normally just a sharp one-liner.

There's lots of interesting stuff happening in the world. Lots of good and bad things, and there's interest in music still, which there always will be, which is always a good thing.

I think everyone's so scared of other people judging them.

I don't like to overcook songs.

I think that if people get my music, then they get what my message is.

I like reading biographies because most of them are slightly similar, and it's voyeuristic, looking into someone's life.

We're a very success-driven culture, which is such a downer at times. Even if you don't think that way, you're forced to think that way. Everyone is trying to subconsciously out-do everyone else.

Leaving the house is a big enough occasion for me, so getting on a plane and flying across the world and playing to a room full of people is just out of this world.

I just want to be self-sustainable so that I can continue to just do what I like to do and not make a million dollars. Nobody needs a million dollars.

I try to take notes of things that happen that I think are important or interesting or just little tidbits here and there that happen in life. And some of it's even just one line or like a saying and I just go off that.

I liked the idea of being a photographer, just that you take this one picture of this one thing that'll never happen again - it's a bit weird when you think about it.

I think that a good song is catchy, and a great song is not catchy - but it has a deeper meaning.

People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good.

I try to write a lot and my process is kind of back and forth. I procrastinate a lot so when I do sit down to write, I'm pretty lazy at it. And it's such a frustrating thing sometimes - writing - when you don't do it all the time, you get that thing in your head that you have nothing to talk about and you can't write songs.

Sometimes I have something stuck in my head and that directs the rhyme that I'm writing with.

If I'm not touring I'd just be at home, just driving - I'm kind of at a loss for how that stuff works.

When I was a teen, or like 18 to early 20s, I used to go to festivals all the time. I'd save all my money.

It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.

I think even though things are changing a bit, we still kind of tend to grow up with girls being like, 'Don't be too loud, don't be too rude, don't be too naughty,' or whatever, to act a certain way.

Festivals are always fun. I went to a lot when I was younger and had money to go to them. I like playing at festivals. They're always kind of like a big, crazy circus.

I don't know anything except being female, so I don't know the opposite of it.

I don't really feel like a rock artist, but I guess in the small category of the world of music genres, that's where I fall in because I've got a guitar.

Every time I write a song it feels like it could be the last one I do, or it always feels like a fluke.

I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.

The music, I think, is just as important as the lyrics; it portrays the emotion of the song. I play the kind of music that I want to listen to.

I reckon that growing up, listening to so much different music, I think over time I just kind of sucked it all in and it probably comes back out through my music.

I definitely grew up on a lot of American bands. I didn't really know that there were any decent Australian bands until I was around 20.

The first song I wrote was called "You" and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist. I remember them all because I used to always write terrible poetry. I keep all my notebooks.

I grew up listening to Nirvana, and then went through some bad 90s pop stuff - a lot of Australian one-hit wonders.

It's easier to be angry. It's harder to be positive and happy, I reckon.

An album is a thing you take time out and go work on.