I prefer the mystic clouds of nostalgia to the real thing, to be honest.

It's funny that Chairman Mao's great hero was Napoleon, because Napoleon started out as a revolutionary for the underdogs and then made himself an emperor. In fact, a lot of revolutionary leaders do that, and you think, "Well, that's spoiling your argument. What are you doing?" But on the other hand, the people themselves are enjoying trying out all these different ways to be. I hope that, like the Japanese, the Chinese hang on to their own traditions as well as try out Western ones. I hate it when people just lose so much confidence in who they are that they abandon their own culture.

When I'm singing I try not be a singer with a capital S. I just try to get it out so I feel comfortable with it.

The missing links in my life's work, no less!

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.

In theory, I'd like to work in a group. But the group I'd like to work in, all the musicians in them are long since dead.

I was a latecomer to politics. Maybe I'm just very slow. I got to everything when everyone else had left.