A great editor is the most valuable thing you can have as an artist because, as you said, sometimes you get too close to something. I think, apart from your talent, that's why you have the career you have - because you have great people behind you.

And we have come so far like that. I mean, the advances on the medication side have been enormous, and the advances on the human side have been enormous. But we still have this stigma to get rid of, and then we really will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Everything I thought I'd hate about having children - the crying, the screaming - nothing fazes me. I love it all and it's relaxed me.

We have a society where every hit maker and TV presenter is gay.

I just go into the studio, look at the lyrics for the first time when I put them on the piano, and go. If I haven't got it within 40 minutes, I give up. It's never changed, the thrill has never gone, because I don't know what I'm going to get next.

Live for each second without hesitation

That's just a part of being an artist: you can't write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you'd be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.