He's been dead for so many years, but I'm still trying to impress him. That's what gave me my drive. 'Look at me, Dad, I've succeeded.'

In the '50s you weren't taught about sex whatsoever. It was never just talked about. People used to snoop behind their curtains and look at the neighbors. And if a girl became pregnant in your part of the world, she was shipped off to the countryside.

Fame attracts lunatics.

I really appreciate my performing so much better, as I get older. I don't take it for granted anymore. I really relish it and love it.

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.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

I love people who expect me to wear great, feathery costumes- and I do it. It's like an actor getting into his costume for his part. I don't really feel that part until I'm into whatever I'm going to wear.