A lot of journalists give me a hard time about how I look, but I've never met a journalist I'd rather look like.

You don't always have to sing dark things to be thoughtful.

You put on eyeliner, and people start screaming at you. How strange, and how marvellous.

I think the rock'n'roll myth of living on the edge is a pile of crap.

There were only two times in my life when I've actually felt down about things and gotten myself into a full mental mess. One of the times was in 1982. I had a horrible time for a few months and felt pretty desperate. Then again in 1984, for various reasons, not all of them within my control. Since then, I just wander in and out of black moods.

I'm not a morose person; it's just that my best songs reflect on the sadder aspects of life.

Hendrix was the first person I had come across who seemed completely free, and when you're nine or 10, your life is entirely dominated by adults. So he represented this thing that I wanted to be. Hendrix was the first person who made me think it might be good to be a singer and a guitarist - before that I wanted to be a footballer.

I would be more familiar with Janet Jackson than I was with the Teardrop Explodes or Joy Division, because I didn't want to listen to my competitors for fear of nicking ideas off them.

I could write songs as bad as Wham's if I really felt the urge to, but what's the point?

When you're on stage, the real world just drops away for that time. It's pretty intense.

I don't dislike my peers because they're still around and remind me of what I'm doing. I never liked them anyway. I never liked U2, the things they've done over the years.

You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.

I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.

Nobody notices me. Nobody thinks I'm me. But then I look less like me than most of the people coming to our concerts.

When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'

I still frequent my parents' house. I go there to escape, back to the bedroom that I grew up in. Just to sit there and feel small.

I just don't feel comfortable anymore with the kind of attention that I'm getting. It's purely the numbers of people that want a bit of the Cure or want a bit of me.

You can't allow other people to put a price on what you do, otherwise you don't consider what you do to have any value at all, and that's nonsense.

If you feel alienated from people around you, it's because no one tries to understand you.

I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston.

It's really easy to slide into a depression fueled by the pointlessness of existence.

I've discovered special makeup by a company called M.A.C. You could wear it on the surface of the sun and it wouldn't move.

In some cases, I quite like irritating people who need to be irritated.

It's only people that aren't goths that think the Cure are a goth band.