“Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups.”

I have the audience I deserve. Or at least I have the audience that represents the kind of people that I like.

When you shake you ass, they notice fast. And some mistakes were built to last.

It’s really difficult trying to find the line where you don’t piss anybody off.

I have two sisters. My father is Greek and comes from a family of seven. My mother is English and comes from a family of five.

I don’t have joy in watching myself, whereas, actually, I quite like listening to my own music.

At a certain age I just stopped arguing. I realized that there was no way [my father] could see, because for him to approve of what I was doing, he would have to have some belief in me as a musician.

I’d never touch anything. I think it’s foolhardy to play around with the face that you’ve been given. To have a little snip or a tuck, I think, is really quite obscene.

I’m surprised that I’ve survived my own dysfunction, really.

There are very few things in my life that I can’t have if I want them. So when I see something that I can’t have, immediately I’m obsessed by it.

I also think I could probably repeat the commercial success; whether I want to or not is a different matter. I think there is still better work inside me.

This stuff [marijuana] keeps me sane and happy. I’d say it’s a great drug – but obviously it’s not very healthy.

People, you can never change the way they feel. Better let them do what they will. For they will, if you let them, steal your heart.

I seem to think that anything worth having in life has to be painful to attain.

As I became George professionally and everyone called me George, Yog became the name that people who knew me from before started to use. It became more valuable to me.

I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 – in certain parts of the world anyway.

I don’t go for safe options. Romantically, I go for people who are a pain in the ass.

This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we’re not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

The Democratic Party was always there on crime, but in the past we let the ideologues on the left dominate. The Republicans may still let the ideologues on the right dominate.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Certainly any president – Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative – should keep an open mind until they get the briefing.

Democrats don’t relate to middle-class people.

We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.