I was quite keen on silviculture, the growing of trees, and that was something I gave a lot of thought to. Maybe I could've gone in that direction. But it just so happened that while I was trying to make up my mind, I enrolled in art school, and there I began to develop my interest in music, parallel with my interest in the visual arts.

Why do the faithful have such a will, to believe in something? And call in the name they choose, having chosen nothing.

It was instilled in me that the money I was given was not to be lost or spent on any other purpose.

In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.

I'm not one for Sudoku or crosswords - the thing that fires my little brain is doing tour budgets.

I don't think people really do listen. We plug into music, and we have short attention spans. We tend to download individual tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album. We buy music DVDs and watch them once, and then they disappear into a drawer, or we loan them to a friend, and we never watch it again.

I think it's really the job of the composer, the artist, the painter, the writer to present people with options. I'm just really reflecting the thoughts and actions around me.