There are certain sounds that I've found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.

I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Pop is totally results-oriented and there is a very strong feedback loop.

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.

If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

You either believe that people respond to authority, or that they respond to kindness and inclusion. I'm obviously in the latter camp. I think that people respond better to reward than punishment.

Law is always better than war.

It's actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

I'd love it if American kids were listening to Muslim music.

I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

I know that if I had a television in my flat I would convince myself that everything on it was really interesting. I would say, 'I'm a Celebrity - Get Me Out of Here!' is so sociologically fascinating that I think I'd better watch.

Everybody is entertained to death.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

Even though I'm known as a pop musician, I have a seriousness about what I do.

The artists of the past who impressed me were the ones who really focused their work.

The computer brings out the worst in some people.

Everybody thinks that when new technologies come along that they're transparent and you can just do your job well on it. But technologies always import a whole new set of values with them.

In England and Europe, we have this huge music called ambient - ambient techno, ambient house, ambient hip-hop, ambient this, ambient that.

I've got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

I make a lot of pieces of music that I never release as CDs.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don't sell that many records.

Every band I've worked with also wants to be countercultural in the sense that they want to feel that they've gone somewhere that nobody else has been.