Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.

I'm fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they've lived for so long.

I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old.

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.

The body changes shape and there's nothing you can do about it.

I know L.A. well, but it's a police state.

I know I will never have a hit single in America.

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.

I think there are unseen powers who don't want pop music to be anything other than glorified Madonnas.

Well, I'm a Catholic by birth and you can never shed it.

Everything about my life is private, really. I'm not so sure that any of it has ever been public.

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.

Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?

I've been pilloried so many times that I begin to expect it now.

With the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because, although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more the British identity disappears.

Let lying dogs sleep is something I always say in reference to the Smiths.

I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn't wildly excite me to be too restricting.

That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.

If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.

You are bound to pick up influences.

I don't think I'm ever forgiven for anything, which is baffling because I'm not on TV that much.

I'm not an anarchist, but I believe that people don't want the royal family - the so-called royal family.

The Queen is the ultimate dictator.

Killing a stag is like killing a child.

It's always nice to receive a compliment.

I always seem to be singing against the grain.

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.

I still prefer horses to human beings.

It's so tedious that everyone must be defined.

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.

Pop music has progressed.

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'.

You may not realize this, but people have the power to change the world.

I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normally living.

British politics, as the world knows, is a joke. Yet it's rarely funny.

The solo years have been more meaningful to the audiences than the Smiths years, but the press in England only write about me in relation to the Smiths era.

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave... walking the plank... willingly... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.

You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you're doing, and I can manage that.

You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies.

If you love animals, obviously it doesn't make sense to hurt them.

I find that it isn't wise to attempt to judge people on their public persona, and even on the music they make. Because I've met so many people whose music I cannot stand, and they're very nice. At the same time, I've met people whose music I've loved, and they're not the person you've invested all this emotion in.

Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive.

The paradox is that I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.

I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make.

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.

I hated the royal wedding.

I feel undefinable actually.

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.

I don't iron anything. Never have and never will.

Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.