That was my fantasy, actually - to become a billionaire, buy the 'Sun' and the 'Mirror,' and close them down.

I've lived in Liverpool, London, Belfast, Germany, Coventry, Dorset, and Cyprus.

The only thing that makes sense to me that I've learnt over the years is knocking tunes together.

Maybe I'm actually an optimist.

I wish I had better contact with my family.

I used to write songs to get love, but now that I have it, I don't feel the need to anymore.

In a way, I'm always working with Mick Jones. I feel like he's watching over me all the time. We talk about everything: history quite a lot. Balloons and wars and old football players. The Clash.

No, I never surround myself with people I hate.

I can't see why people call me a bad influence. I meet a lot of kids who are into music. I spend as much time as I can with them. I listen to their demos, and I'm encouraging.

Anyone can feel amazing if you're with someone you love.

I knew I had I a better album than 'Up the Bracket' in me, and I wanted to record it. But I was told we've got to keep touring, keep promoting. That was the first time I realised we were on a conveyor belt.

When you're young and idealistic, you don't care: you'll play to no one, in your bedroom - like kids with football - you'll play anywhere; you just love the music. And then, bang - soon as you're in the industry, you think that's the dream. But that's when the dream starts to end.

I'm always nervous before playing a gig, to tell you the truth. It's what nearly did me in when I was with the Libertines. I just couldn't handle it.

I have too many debts with the wrong people.

I'm always looking over my shoulder.

Money wasn't important to me. Once I discovered music, I was quite happy to live as a bum. As long as I had my music and my band, I was happy.

So many actors say, 'Oh, I can't bear to see myself on screen,' but it's not true. Everyone loves to see themselves from a good angle.

My family used to say, point-blank, 'We'd support you if we thought you could sing, or we thought you could write songs, but you can't.'

I have a distinct memory of friends I had at school whose parents were, for want of a better word, bohemian. That was the kind of England that I thought I should have belonged to.

The only way I see myself in a serious relationship is if I am toning it down a bit.

It was always my ambition to be on the cover of a free gay magazine.

Inverted snobbery is just as dangerous as snobbery itself, you know - that pride in having nothing.

It's never going to be hipster because you've got that smell that the sea gives out twice a day. That's why Margate will never be gentrified. However, there is art-led regeneration.

Music and fashion and art - they were the things we were willing to die for. 'Is my hair all right? Have you heard this tune?' They're the things that saved us. They're the things that are saving kids on Nuneaton council estates. There's no other way out.