I am still my teenage self. If you think that we all step through a door marked Adult, or that we sign a Grown-Up Document, you’re quite wrong. We remain as we always were, and that, alas, is one of life’s many nasty tricks.

Popular music is slowly being laid to rest in every conceivable way... the ashes are already about us if we could but notice them.

Rejection is one thing - but rejection from a fool is cruel.

I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.

Life is a very serious business for the simple reason that nobody dies laughing.

I've only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.

I've always done quite well as far as the charts are concerned. And yet I always felt I conveyed the spirit of the music I love, which didn't have any chart success.