We did not get any money from the early records. It was all taken by crooked managers. It is just a gangster's paradise.

I don't want to be a professional cripple. And I don't see the suicide stuff as tragic.

I only choose musicians who I think will emerge, can emerge, with their own character, while still going along with the tune in question.

There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.

I find it hard to take rock groups very seriously or treat them with respect. There is something absurd about these gloomy young men getting together and banging away.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is. I'm naturally quite conformist, really. If I go to a country and they say, "You've got to drive on the right," I'm not going to drive on the left to show that I'm different. I'm able to stick to the law. I'm not a soldier for anything, either. I'm only a singer and I don't think it makes a difference what we sing.

I think the people who did well, or are happy, in a youth industry, they define themselves out of the business after a decade or so.