When I was 14 I used to have a calendar on my wall, crossing the days off until I was 15, because the school leaving age was 15. Then three months before I turned 15 they changed the leaving age to 16.

A lot of musicians are really hard to deal with. They aren't as smart as me.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them. Get them drunk, or whatever. Then discover what they really think. Push them and push them and push them.

I do feel like an outsider, but I don't lose any sleep over it.

I can write, boy, I can write. That's what I do. The trouble is that it's too bloody easy for people, that's why music is in the sorry state that it is. Any idiot, actors mainly, can go in there, sing a chord, bang on a machine... I'm not objecting to that but when people get at me for trying to say something in a rock 'n' roll mode it's as if I'm the freak.

I was picked on because I was timid. I had younger sisters; I couldn't turn to them for help. I didn't have an older brother.

I used to be psychic, but I drank my way out of it.