I really liked them, not just Syd, but all of them. Roger was very important, I thought, his contribution. And so was Rick's organ playing. It was a good band. It became something else completely, obviously.

I find writing songs hard, because it does not come naturally to me. I never set out to be a songwriter or a singer.

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

What hurts people a lot is taking humiliation.

I can't imagine my life without the extraordinary bebop jazz revolution in New York in late '40s and '50s.

The things that I draw on, and the world that I feel part of, aren't particularly youth culture.

In fact, when the fires of empire get hidden, they still stay burning underneath the moss, seething away. This is true with a lot of the countries with really difficult, impenetrable nationalist movements - countries that once had a big empire, like Turkey, England, or even in Italy, with the fascists in the middle of the last century. People who had empires, unfortunately, want them back eventually, somehow, someway.