“I’ve learned to really just say no. If I don’t want to do something, I won’t do it. There’s nothing that can make me do anything.”

I could be religious, if they sang the hymns to disco.

If you make a mistake, you should enjoy it.

I just became a vegetable for three months. I couldn’t talk to people. I was very ill and that was part of the reason I left college.

Cause people lose it, they lose it – they say: ‘I like that, and that’s not this.’

Bipolar disorder, manic depression, depression, black dog, whatever you want to call it, is inherent in our society. It’s a product of stress and in my case over-work.

I’m a punk rocker. I don’t do Christian.

There is always room at the top, don’t let them tell you there is not.

I wanted to make good records. But my problem is I’ve got a low boredom threshold, so I wanted it to look and sound different with each album, which is really tantamount to suicide

I’ve been told I sold 110m albums and singles. If that’s the case, I should’ve come here in a space rocket.

I’ve never really been nervous about any concerts. I enjoy it so much.

The brain isn’t like the heart. They learned how to transplant a heart. The brain is more complex.

Since the decline of record companies and music sales, I’ve always played live.

I think what’s going on with gorillas is pretty bad. The fact is that you can buy gorilla meat in London any day you want it.

Depression is something that doesn’t just go away. It’s just… there and you deal with it. It’s like… malaria or something.

Bad things happen sometimes.

I didn’t lose my virginity until I was 18 The first time was a nightmare. Who shows you how to use a condom?

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all.

Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else.

Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words, and they backhand them over the net. They love words that give them a hard time, provided they are in a context that absorbs their attention.

I had practiced not saying anything the whole way from the airport, and it was still nearly killing me.

I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.

Anything can change, because the smartphone revolution is still in the early stages.

I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.

I don’t think anything of Laura Frank. You heard me – Laura Frank. Not Lawrence. Laura… It’s not that I blame him, I just wish he’d go to a manly tactic and just fight me. Don’t whine. When he whines, that’s when I change his name of Lawrence Frank.