You've got to try to figure out which is the bigger benefit and which is the bigger loser. It nearly killed him [Eric Clapton ]; he was in a very, very bad way for a long time, but he came through it. Most people don't come through it because they don't have the money to buy the people to look after them.

I hate heroin. It killed off a lot of my generation. It killed off a lot of my friends. Now this generation is getting killed off again. I can't believe it. How many dead bodies do we need to have piled up?

There are a lot of good books around. People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?

They [The Beatles ] were the first band to write their own songs in Britain because we always just covered American songs before that.

Eric Clapton wrote "Layla" when he was coked out of his mind. Later on, it nearly killed him.

[My favorite decade] probably the '60s, because there were hardly any rules and heroin hadn't shown up, so people hadn't started dying. It was incredibly upbeat, and we almost did change the world. I guess that was the best one .

Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination.