I'm lucky enough and wealthy enough to be able to buy photographs and buy art that inspires me from day to day. I don't want a Picasso on my wall; it's great art, but it's dead art to me. I'd rather have a photograph by someone I've never heard of that really inspires me.

I am so in the past. I'm such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.

I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.

I am the biggest technophobe of all time.

I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful. I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.

At heart I've always been a music fan. That part of me has never changed since I was a little kid, sitting in a room watching a record go round, looking at the colour of the labels.

When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important, you enter a dangerous place. Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

I'm so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she's always marched to the beat of her own drum.

My mum always used to buy a record every Friday.

I'm a great lover of children. I never thought that one day I'd actually be a father, but I'm very pleased that I changed my mind. Children are extremely important. They are the future of the world.

I grew up conservative because my mum was a conservative, and when I finally realized what conservatives were, I changed my mind immediately. As children, we tend to copy our parents.

I grew up at my grandmother's house, and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid. I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens.

Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel.

When I say I don't have to write pop songs anymore, there's no way I'm going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I'm doing a duet with Gaga or I was on 'All of the Lights,' which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.

Simon Cowell and I are great friends, and we wind each other up. Rod Stewart and I do the same thing.

It's just so wonderful to have someone in the house like a child to turn your attention to. It's not about you anymore, it's about this lovely little human being.

Everything I thought I'd hate about having children - the crying, the screaming - nothing fazes me. I love it all, and it's relaxed me.

I tour as many countries as possible, and I've toured every state in America, plus every province in Canada.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

I could never go onstage in denims.

I rarely wear tennis shoes. I'm 5' 8', I hate being short.

I'd always lived with people - my family, or had people living with me, because I'd never liked being on my own.

Once I'd heard 'Modern Times' by Bob Dylan, it really changed the way I wanted to make records.