“When I hit 11 so did the careers of Dylan and the Stones. A year later it was the Who and the Kinks.”

It’s like you asked me about the depression thing: you grope towards an understanding of whatever it is your going through, and it’s not personal, there are forces in play around you, and you seek to understand them and that way you can go on

Our problem is that everybody tries to heal each of the individual aspects of poverty, not poverty itself.

Music can’t change the world.

We’re looking at the singular condition of poverty. All the other individual problems spring from that condition… doesn’t matter if it’s death, aid, trade, AIDS, famine, instability, governance, corruption or war. All of that is poverty.

And whereas women had to fight to find their way into the workforce, men are now fighting to reclaim their place in the family structure.

So when I got to 50 I just thought, Hold on: I’m thin. I’ve got my hair. I’m well off. I survived, you know

They thought they were Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall. In fact, they were more like Tom and Jerry

But if somebody dies, if something happens to you, there is a normal process of depression, it is part of being human, and some people view it as a learning experience etc.

It’s really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you’re going to get it to these people.

Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it.

I don’t think anyone sets out to malign poor people but certainly that’s what we do through organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

I’m sure I’m very difficult to live with because of my make-up and personality.

You cannot even begin to understand contemporary African politics if you have not read this fascinating book

Blair has called Africa ‘a scar on our conscience’. It is more. It is the gaping wound of the world’s soul.

Rock and Roll is instant coffee.

Men who are not given any voice in this because of the secret nature of the courts, what they’re left with is dressing up ridiculously, but at least using humour to try and draw attention to their kids

I’m sort of focused on my long-term goal of carving out a career that’s for life, rather than being a flash in the pan.

I realised quite early on that, although I wasn’t trying to make a career speciality of it, I was playing slightly asexual, sociopathic intellectuals.

Every time you have to make a choice about anything, think Does this go toward or away from what I want? Always choose what goes toward what you want.

If there’s anything about the business that I love and that I’m extremely happy about, is that my career started at that time and that I met some of the greatest entertainers at that time and some are still here.

I’ve met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.

I’m a lot happier in people’s living rooms weekly than I think I would be if I was really, really relying on a movie career to keep me fulfilled and excited.

I’ve been very fortunate in my collaborators throughout my career.

Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent.