She's probably in denial that she's a great big ball of insecurity and I'm quite well aware that I am one.

I was about 16 when punk started to happen... It felt like you had this naive idea that you could change things just by wearing something.

The New Romantic scene was so tiny. Although it got lots of mileage in the media, it was a really small club with only a core group of people. As it got more popular, kids started to come from the suburbs all dressed up, but it -really wasn't as big as it looked.

Leigh [Bowery] would make up stories about people committing suicide or going on hunger strikes because they were refused entry at the door.

I felt that making records in a traditional way - putting them out in the same way, wasting loads of money - was just a pointless exercise.

Every freak has a mother. When I met Marilyn Manson I was struck by how nice he was. People are rarely as weird as you anticipate. Except for Courtney Love-who reminded me of that mad snake in The Jungle Book.

The most significant New York club for me was Paradise Garage, where they played house music. This was around '84 or '85.