The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, "Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here." I find it vaguely sinister, even.

I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.

Looking back, one of the things I love most about my mom was that she never, ever relented. She stuck to her guns right up until the end. She wasn't abusive, but she was never that thrilled that I was gay.

You know the question: 'How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' Answer: 'Practise?' Well, in my case, I got there by not practising. I didn't finish my music degree. And when I got into the pop world, I decided not to conform because I figured that the point of being an artist was that you shouldn't be like anyone else.

My mother and father could not handle even me being gay. We never talked about it really.

Well, my great lesson with that was I went to the same production twice - once completely high and once completely sober - and both times were equally wonderful.

Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.