The Queen is the ultimate dictator.
I still prefer horses to human beings.
Everything about my life is private, really. I'm not so sure that any of it has ever been public.
The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble - famous and meaningless.
If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.
If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.
You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you're doing, and I can manage that.
Often I feel I say too much.
Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.
Reggae is vile.
My talents do not lie in DIY.
Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'.
Even though I've been reasonably well known for quite a long time, I still can't get a record on daytime radio or on MTV.
I do think it's possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.
The most common phrase bandied about these days is 'Oh my God'. People say it automatically all the time - not realising that that's a form of prayer.
I'm capable of looking on the bright side. I just don't do it very often.
Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.
I think there are unseen powers who don't want pop music to be anything other than glorified Madonnas.
I mean, death is a serious thing, certainly not to be sneezed at.
I think we were all initially swept along with the Obama win, but he's proven to be simply a set of teeth, and useless in every other regard.
As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters.
I'm cursed with the gift of foresight.
The body changes shape and there's nothing you can do about it.
If you love animals, obviously it doesn't make sense to hurt them.
You may not realize this, but people have the power to change the world.
Once somebody is known, it seems as though anybody anywhere can say anything about them. Whereas if I simply stopped someone in the street and criticised their clothes, their work, their parents, their inner being, I'd be sued and I'd be thrown in prison.
I don't want to go on much longer, really. I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also.
If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent.
Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.
That was the problem with the 'celibate' word because they don't consider for a moment that you'd rather not be, but you just are. I was never a sexual person.
I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one.
I don't necessarily think that the world should know everything, and even if you consider yourself to be extremely honest, that doesn't mean you have to blurt everything out all the time.
England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.
I always seem to be singing against the grain.
Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.
Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive.
War, I thought, was the most negative aspect of male heterosexuality. If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.
When I'm lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.
I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.
I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.
It could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion. And that's not true at all.
Those Catholics, they really nab you when you're young.
That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.
We're all lonely, but I'd rather be lonely by myself than with a long list of duties and obligations. I think that's why people kill themselves, really.
I've never intended to be controversial, but it's very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.
I earn more than I thought I would when I became a poet.
British politics, as the world knows, is a joke. Yet it's rarely funny.
Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?
