My earliest memories are sitting on the beach at Blackpool, and I know that if I went back, it would be horrible. I know what Blackpool's like - it's nothing like I imagined it was as a child.

If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work.

Anyone can rehearse and play constantly any song in the world.

Living, it's awful for me.

I think that if you become a parent, you stop being a child, and your position in relation to your parents changes.

I'm not really obsessed with death.

I just play Cure music, whatever that is.

Performing doesn't come that naturally to me, even though I've done it for years.

Perhaps not as badly applied and not as obvious, but for thousands of years, people have worn makeup on stage.

If you acquiesce to one interview, there's always another waiting in the wings. Also if you're interviewed repeatedly, you just start repeating yourself. I don't like to do that.

Whatever I was doing, even when I was at school, I never repressed anything that I felt. I wasn't flamboyant; I was actually quite reticent most of the time. But if I felt I had to do something, I did it.

The idea of appealing to people of a like mind and like spirit always appealed to me.

The very first concert I ever went to on my own was actually Rory Gallagher. In a one-month period in 1973 or '74, I saw him, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones. I wasn't really a big Rory Gallagher fan, but I thought his guitar playing was fabulous. But Thin Lizzy, they were fabulous.

I don't care where the Cure is placed in the pantheon of rock. I don't care if we're perceived as relevant. We're never worried how we fit in. I don't even want to fit in.

The idea of reinvention has always seemed bizarre to me.

Apart from the fact that I've got a strange job, I do lead a fairly normal life. I do my own shopping. I don't feel constrained by who I am because of what I do; I often feel disappointed by my lack of ability. I get frustrated at myself, but I think everyone does.

I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it.

I lose myself in music because I can't be bothered explaining what I feel to anyone else around me.

I've never regretted not having children. My mindset in that regard has been constant. I objected to being born, and I refuse to impose life on someone else.

Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up.

They may not like us, but they can't get away from knowing who we are.

It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.

In some cases, I quite like irritating people who need to be irritated.

I've discovered special makeup by a company called M.A.C. You could wear it on the surface of the sun and it wouldn't move.

It's really easy to slide into a depression fueled by the pointlessness of existence.

I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston.

If you feel alienated from people around you, it's because no one tries to understand you.

You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all, and that's nonsense.

I just don't feel comfortable anymore with the kind of attention that I'm getting. It's purely the numbers of people that want a bit of the Cure or want a bit of me.

I still frequent my parents' house. I go there to escape, back to the bedroom that I grew up in. Just to sit there and feel small.

When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'

Nobody notices me. Nobody thinks I'm me. But then I look less like me than most of the people coming to our concerts.

I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.

You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.

I don't dislike my peers because they're still around and remind me of what I'm doing. I never liked them anyway. I never liked U2, the things they've done over the years.

When you're on stage, the real world just drops away for that time. It's pretty intense.

I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?

I would be more familiar with Janet Jackson than I was with the Teardrop Explodes or Joy Division, because I didn't want to listen to my competitors for fear of nicking ideas off them.

Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you're nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist - before that I wanted to be a footballer.

I'm not a morose person; it's just that my best songs reflect on the sadder aspects of life.

There were only two times in my life when I've actually felt down about things and gotten myself into a full mental mess. One of the times was in 1982. I had a horrible time for a few months and felt pretty desperate. Then again in 1984, for various reasons, not all of them within my control. Since then, I just wander in and out of black moods.

I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.

You put on eyeliner, and people start screaming at you. How strange, and how marvellous.

You don't always have to sing dark things to be thoughtful.

A lot of journalists give me a hard time about how I look, but I've never met a journalist I'd rather look like.

I always place myself as the archetypal Cure fan. I'm the wrong age, but I still think that if I like anything particularly, our fans will.

I became an adult in an extreme way. I was recently sorting some old photographs and I found another.

I had every intention of 'Bloodflowers' being the last Cure record. I thought it would be fantastic to finish with the best thing we'd ever done, but I wasn't sure we could pull it off.

I have never liked Morrissey, and I still don't. I think it's hilarious, actually, what things I've heard about him, what he's really like, and his public persona is so different. He's such an actor.

I wore makeup when I was at school, and I wore makeup when glam started. I started wearing it again when punk started. I've always been drawn to wearing it. It's partly ritualistic, partly theatrical and partly just because I think I look better with it on.