They called me 'Mr. Average' in school.

I love my cracked eyes.

If the way I see the world is mad, then fantastic.

I don't ever want to get to the point where I don't think about death! You've got to swim in it, learn from it - embrace it!

I think I've learned a lot on the vocal side of things.

There's always one character, I think, in every town who's the obsessive who steals money to go and buy records.

If Sinatra had packed in his style because there were a load of counterfeit Sinatras about, he would have stopped singing in 1956 or whatever.

'Bitter Sweet Symphony' is one of the biggest hip-hop records of all time once you actually analyse it.

'Bitter Sweet Symphony' is one of the greatest pieces of modern art created by anyone. I'm not blowing my own trumpet here.

A classic song is timeless. You'll never outlive a classic song. I'll never put The Beatles 'In My Life' on one day and say, 'That doesnt move me any more.'

It doesn't matter how fashion or politics changes; you'll never change a classic song.

The music industry wants safe rock stars, people who are totally homogenised.

I've always felt like an outsider in this industry, but that sense of community - that sense of belonging with your fans - it's an amazing feeling, and it's really inspiring.

I want to entertain and inspire.

As a musician, I don't wanna put out political soundbites.

I've got a talent, and people enjoy my songs, people love my songs; why stop?

If you judge people by what they've done in the past, you're wrong.

I strongly disagree that you can't have a happy family life and a child as well as rock n' roll.

I'm never happy with any record, never truly been happy.

Obviously, aging has a certain amount of mellowing process because there's certain things you realise you were doing when you were younger that were plain ridiculous, stupid.

There's a track called 'Why Not Nothing' about how the world's turning so conservative and so religious at the same time. I think it's up to the songwriters to give another side to the coin, and my music does that.

Hearing 'This Is How It Feels' on the radio was an amazing feeling, like starting again. But I believe that, in the end, my name will be bigger then the Verve because of all those great tunes and the power of what I stand for.

I've had tons of incredible conversations with people who say they got married or buried relatives to my songs.

At The Verve's first-ever gig, I said that we were gonna blow this local band off the stage. It was only in the local Wigan paper, and they rang me to ask why I was being so aggressive. I just went, 'Hey man, it's like boxing. I'm just trying to sell a ticket.'