“I did not like prizes at school. I didn’t like tests or exams, or the 11+, or O-levels. Later I hated B.A.s and M.A.s. The reason I hated them is that I don’t like being tested, failed or falsely praised by anyone.”

We are not actually in charge of life, yet we behave as if we are the masters of our own destiny. The realization of this fact is quite a hard one. The ridiculousness of our pomposity and presumption can only result in anger or humor.

We believe in a society in delusion, and if you’re awake and not deluded people tell you you’re mad. That’s why I’m a freak and they’re not. But I’m actually not.

My teeth have never been touched. Why did I tell you that? Knock on wood. I’ve got a few scars over the eyes, a couple on the chin, a few on the beak and one across the cheek. But my luck is running out.

I’ve dubbed myself as an amateur, not because I work in different field, but because I do what I do for love.

We tend to take a great deal for granted, because you feel like you’re going to live forever. It’s only if you lose a friend, or maybe have a near-death experience, [that] many events and people in your life suddenly attain real significance.

One of my biggest problems in life has been my inability to lie.

I gave up drinking lots of whiskey and began to practice yoga and meditation. As a result I am not dead.

I’ve always liked New York, as I like towns with an edge and New York has a European feel, so when I came to play music here in the ’80s it was a surprise to me.

When I was better known than her, she put my name in that tent. I was asked to do Celebrity Big Brother, but why should I? We live in an age where fame is not related to what you do.

I liked drawing and painting, because the only failure would be to listen to the doubters who wanted me to stop drawing and painting because ‘you aren’t going to make a living doing that.’ I liked looking in art books at the work of painters.

I loved moustaches. I used to draw myself with one. When I was 14, I was really into war and Van Gogh.

Bowie and McCartney arrived, and the biscuits and caviare started and I left immediately. I don’t like shouting across rooms, with people in shiny suits who look like used-car salesmen.

I’m going to get a pair of wire-snips, and I’ve also started a new campaign to have blank CDs on jukeboxes so you can play the silence.

I think that the mythology of Van Gogh’s life, and the beauty of his paintings, is unstoppable.

Failure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can’t do it any other way.

The most challenging work I’ve seen of late is by The British Art Resistance. Their document, ‘A Call for Heroes in an Age of Cowards’, is apt in these days of witless chancers.

I will not lower the standard of the Bible to my level of experience.

If you’re going to establish a certain level of unreality than you have to deal with it

I told you the one change we would make in the initial start level of the football pressure, but that’s really about it.

A small country like Georgia has little influence on conflicts that must be resolved at the global level.

I hate to say it, but the truth is that the upscale line is where I get respect as a designer. The higher the price range, the higher the respect level from the industry, even though it’s much easier to make a great $500 dress than a great $100 dress.

Opportunity meets you at your level of expectation.

Whenever the investor sold out in an upswing as soon as the top level of the previous well-recognized bull market was reached, he had a chance in the next bear market to buy back at one third (or better) below his selling price.

At a basic level venture capitalists are arbitrageurs: they have access to more information than those with the capital, and access to more capital than those with information, and they profit by exploiting the mismatch.