You can't give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside - so be it. But at least you know you've tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of one hundred years outside of it.

There's no point stepping up to the golden platform if you're going to repeat yourself.

I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to feel lonely. I like to need things.

I think that passion and love and pain are all bearable, and they go to make love beautiful.

Music is for every single person that walks the planet.

The past is a stepping stone, not a millstone.

No, I've never thought that I was gay. And that's not something you think. It's something you know.

I've got the big name, but I've always wanted to be in a band, one of a band.

There have been people I've warmed to over the years but, as the situation I'm in is so fleeting and transient, I've always known it's going to be over kind of real quick.

Now I'm a blithering oaf hanging on to the coatsleeves of commerciality.

Soon, I'm going to need help crossing the street.

A daily blog would just about finish me off completely.

I'm British - ostensibly British - but I don't know where I really belong, you know?

So many white kids, English kids - we had no culture.

When you're 20 years old and you're making points with volume and dynamism, it's a fantastic thing to do.

Lately, I'm spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream - almost dissolving into another world, musically.

There's a similarity between European and North African folk musics.

Alone I'm nothing.

I'm just lucky because my kids are grown-up - I love them, very proud of them, and we are in close contact as big-time friends, but they don't need me that much now and I can actually enjoy this wonderful world of music.

I think I surprise myself.

My dad played fiddle as well.

I still like to get carried away - but passively.

I hate cliche.

You have to ask these questions: who pays the piper, and what is valuable in this life?