I've always been into guitars... we want to put keyboards on, but keyboard players don't look cool onstage, they just keep their heads down. There has never been a cool keyboard player, apart from Elton John.

I don't think we live in those times when great art comes out of great adversity.

I've never understood musicians who don't enjoy doing promotional interviews. I just can't believe it. I always think, 'Your life must have been so brilliant before you were in a band.'

I've never felt like I had anything important to say.

In business, you can have one massive success that earns $50 million overnight, and that's it. You're successful. End of story. But in the music business, you have to keep on doing it.

When you're in a band and there's five of you, you have to accommodate five people in every song.

I don't fall into the category of tortured artist. But it's not made me more or less anything.

American sports are quite masculine. And football - although it's still played by men all over the world - football compared to American football is quite feminine in its artistry. And there's no padding. It's America's loss, though.

If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.

I don't have the genetic make up of a frontman, but I'm learning how to do it.

When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different.

There's enough music in the world. There are enough rock stars.

Even in the nineties, when it was mad and there were photographers all around the house, it never occurred to me to send someone else out to get cigarettes. It took me five minutes - went for a walk, gave a wave, went back inside.

Kids and family life are only as good as your wife, and she's amazing.

It's a sad state when more people retweet than buy records.

Under Thatcher, who ruled us with an iron rod, great art was made. Amazing designers and musicians. Acid house was born. Very colourful and progressive.

Women have nine months more experience than you do - nine months to prepare for being a parent.

I do think my old fella wasn't much of a... I don't remember him ever being a 'dad' dad. He was too busy working. It was a hard life, man.

I'm against people downloading music.

People say I seem very negative about new music - well, if somebody asks me what I think of Keane, I'll tell 'em. I don't like 'em. I'll obviously take it a step too far and grossly insult the keyboard player's mam or summat, but I'm afraid that's just me.

Every song that I play I wrote by myself.

I don't like being on television when I'm playing live. I don't even like being on Jools Holland or any of them programs.

I'm a little bit of a control freak when it comes to my music, unfortunately.

Why is the rest of the world so overcrowded? Nobody lives in America! We're all squashed up on top of each other in London.

I've got my own style on the guitar, sure, and I play rhythm in a certain way, and I use certain inflections. People have said that to me, and I understand it.

I know there's bands that might write something that sounds like The Smiths, and they'll go, 'Oh, it sounds like The Smiths, we've got to make it sound not like The Smiths.'

There's not enough good things in the world.

I've grown to love California: It's the dream of every English musician to come here and work in the sunshine. To walk up Sunset Boulevard, knowing you're going to make music - that's it.

Frontmen come alive when they come onstage.

I'm not technically proficient enough to attempt all kinds of music.

I'm used to people being a mile away. That suits me. It's more nerve-wracking playing in front of people who are two feet away from me.

I absolutely loved being famous. It was all great, up until the point when it wasn't.

You have to make the effort with children. You can't have them thinking that I reckon I'm special, otherwise they'll start thinking they're special. I want them to feel normal for as long as possible because God knows they'll reach an age when they'll be told they're not.

I first came to London when I was 22 and working as a roadie. Having watched the 'News At Ten' all my life, I thought Big Ben was going to be massive, but I was underwhelmed.

As I get older, I don't aggressively pursue songs. All the great ones just appear.

Anything that's of any use, famous people get hold of it and take it for themselves and it gets a bad rap.

I don't think people need to know what colour socks I'm wearing today; I don't think people need to know what shower gel I'm using. There's too much information in the world, and there's no magic or mystery anymore.

I love the NFL. I don't have a team per se, but I'm into it.

You can't really write a full album about your missus. She'll start getting the wrong idea and start thinking I like her.

I like Chris Martin. I think he's a really great songwriter.

Rock stardom will die because nobody will make enough money any more to be rock stars.

My kids have got to work themselves around my life, not the other way. That's how kids become brats, if you're there staring at them all the time going, 'Are you alright?'

I can make going to the dry-cleaners last an entire day, and the dry cleaners might be 150 yards from my front door. You might find it hard to believe, but I am bone-idle lazy.

When I'm doing music and I'm on the road, I love it. But once I'm home, it's very difficult to go back out on the road.

Every album I've ever been involved in, on the day that it came out I believed in it.