We're all private people, but as a musician, I think that once you get to the point where there's more of your life behind you than in front of you, you owe it to your public to explain yourself.

Thatcher was wrong. People don't exist - well, they don't flourish - as individuals. Life's about swapping ideas and communicating with other people.

When you grow up without a brother or sister, you tend to see things just through your own eyes. You have friends and everything, but you spend most of your time watching TV or sat in a room making decisions about your life on your own.

It's not in my nature to be too literal.

I was interested in Prozac from a personal point of view because I can be a bit moody - things do get on top of me sometimes - so I was quite keen to find out what it would do to my personality.

If you're a lead singer, then you can't afford to be sensitive. On stage, everyone looks at the lead singer, even if you don't want them to - in America, they have those massive follow spots on you all the time; it does your head in. So, if you are a lead singer and you don't toughen up, you're in the wrong job, and you have to get out.

There's challenges in life that present themselves unexpectedly, and if you rise to them, then those challenges will toughen you up.

There's only two choices when life goes wrong. You deal with it, or you check out, and, like 90% of people, I go for the former.

I'm not interested in the past or in talking about myself.

If someone throws you in a pool and you can't swim, you're going to struggle.

I like singing now, but I didn't at the start. I didn't think about singing, didn't know how to do it, so I hit the ground stumbling.

I entered music at a poppy level.

I never knew my father. He'd disappeared from the scene before I was born, and I still have no idea who he is. Perhaps strangely, it's never bothered me; I certainly don't believe it's really affected me.

My mother, Laura Sumner, had cerebral palsy. She was born absolutely fine, but after about three days, she started having convulsions that left her with a condition that would confine her to a wheelchair her entire life.

Joy Division sounded like Manchester: cold, sparse and, at times, bleak.

Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.

I've realized that I owe people a look behind the scenes of my own story, because I don't think anyone can have a true understanding of the music without an insight into where it came from.

Part of the reason I joined Joy Division was so that I really wouldn't have to grow up.

I think when you're in your 20s, going from adolescence to about 24, I think your life is a series of emotional storms that you have to weather. Life is more emotional at that time, and you're less equipped to deal with what life throws at you. I always think that if you can get past 24, than life really starts at that point.

I knew from working with New Order that I enjoyed working with Phil Cunningham.

In New Order, I played about 95% of the synths. It's not much fun for the other guys in the band when I'm playing my synth parts.

It can be an educational thing to play your songs to people because you see where you've gone right and where you've gone wrong.

There's parts of touring I like. I like the actual performance part, but the bit when you're in the airport waiting at the carousel for your bags to come around, I don't like that a bit.

It's weird: people used to want your autograph; now what they want to do is to take your photograph with an iPhone. And sometimes they'll pop their arm around you to hold their iPhone; they're shaking when they take it.