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

It’s a tragedy that modernity has released this Ebola beast into the world. It renders humans untouchable, and that’s sickening.

Again, in an imaginary other universe, maybe we’d have done it. That’s the terrible truth that lies at the heart of each of us; that imponderable, ‘were I not Jewish, in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, would I have gone down on the other side?’

I’m a big believer in that old cliché of thinking globally and acting locally.

Most people get into bands for three very simple rock and roll reasons: to get laid, to get fame, and to get rich.

90% of the divorces are initiated by women. That is really odd. Why? What’s going on? What’s the great discontent at the heart of it?

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.

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.

When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda.

So many people and institutions are against homosexuals that, as a homosexual, you can’t waste your time by trying to convince them that you’re a good person.

Don’t be sorry. Just try not to let him touch you. When he touches you I see red. I can’t take it. I don’t want to see him or anyone else touch you

I’m trying my hardest to get you so wrapped up in me you never leave.

Please stop trying to make me the ghost of your past lover.

I don’t generally derive my stories from novels. I try to turn into film things I have felt or experienced.

I’m trying to make myself let you go before Ms. Mary comes to get you, but you go and shiver at my touch and weaken my resolve to stop holding you.

We’re all different and I respect my difference. I just try to be myself at all times. As long as I do that my music is always going to be different.