Those nations of artists, finding their own individualism, and kind of standing against the world: to me that's the ultimate nightmare. I want to get….

People who had empires, unfortunately, want them back eventually, somehow, someway..

There are a lot of composers who were fantastic, but I challenge them to write a record that you could play five times a day for two months on the ra….

I find it hard to take rock groups very seriously or treat them with respect. There is something absurd about these gloomy young men getting together….

Drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckless, and that's the trouble..

I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing..

Love is blind. My politics has been, too. I think you can fall in love with ideas, and you can fall in love with people. It's a very subjective exper….

There's no field of music which doesn't have good ideas..

If you've never felt that you quite got a hold of it, you just feel that before you die, you've got to try and get it right once. And hope that the e….

The things that I draw on, and the world that I feel part of, aren't particularly youth culture..

When I lost the use of my hi-hat and bass drum legs, I became basically a singer. I was a drummer who did a bit of singing, and then I became a singe….

What keeps me going is a constant sense of disappointment with what I've already done..

What I like about popular culture is its accessibility, and I've covered popular songs because they are amazing things..

It just doesnt mean anything to me, the high-profile, big money side of things. I just want enough to live on, and to be able to get on with what I d….

What hurts people a lot is taking humiliation..

I think the people who did well, or are happy, in a youth industry, they define themselves out of the business after a decade or so..

I just saw a recent television program about art, and it was saying how from the end of the Second World War, so much of what our culture is comes fr….

I stopped drinking a few years ago, and drinking was a big help with me making music, because drinking gives you courage. But it also makes you reckl….

I don't know how many thoughts we have a second, but it's quite an amazing number, and just to pin down the appropriate sequence of those, all you re….

I think there are deep structural things that are wrong in the world. The US is the Western empire of the 19th century regrouping in the 20th, not ou….

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which….