I'm English. I can't accept happiness that easily. There's got to be a trick in there somewhere.

I could never, ever talk to my father. I really loved him, but we couldn't talk about anything together. There was this really British thing that being even remotely emotional was absolutely verboten.

One day I realized that I really needed to stop losing myself in my work and in my addictions. What happens is you just wake up one morning and feel absolutely dead. You can't even drag your soul back into your body. You feel you have negated everything that is wonderful about life. When you have fallen that far, it feels like a miracle when you regain your love of life. That's when you can begin really looking for a relationship. When you can appreciate the whole concept of giving to someone, not just taking.

I'm not sure that an art career would have any benefit for me; I'm not sure it's what I want. I don't think I want to be a designer-rock artist.

The younger people get into the lyrics in a different way; there's much more of a tactile understanding, which is the way I prefer it.

You write down a paragraph or two describing several different subjects creating a kind of story ingredients-list, I suppose, and then cut the sentences into four or five-word sections; mix em up and reconnect them. You can get some pretty interesting idea combinations like this. You can use them as is or, if you have a craven need to not lose control, bounce off these ideas and write whole new sections.

I think that the history of rock could be recycled in a different way and brought back into focus without the luggage that comes along with it.