“I am a simple vessel with complex overtones, opinionated on occasions but willing to listen.”

Don’t call my lyrics poetry. It’s an insult to real poets.

My Mother set me on the right track, Marty Robbins made me want to write songs, and Jesus Christ did the rest.

Lincolnshire is the Idaho of England. You were either going to drive a tractor for the rest of your life or head for the city to work in a factory.

One reason I quit doing interviews after years and years and years was because I was making things up.

Read books, discover the blues and don’t Tweet.

Captain Fantastic’ was the first album in history to enter the (American) album chart at number one. We did it for a second time after that. Now that’s not a boast, that’s frightening.

My favorite thing is coming up with titles. The majority of the songs I’ve every written I’ve always thought of the title before I’ve written the song.

I like to work quickly; I never like to waste any time. I never write half a song and come back to it later at all. It all has to be done at once. I lose interest if it doesn’t.

My mother’s father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay’s ‘Lays of Ancient Rome.’ While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I’d be Horatius keeping the bridge.

Elton John’s home is laden with trinkets and books relating to Satanism and witchcraft.

The worst thing about me is that I’ll buy albums and put them away on the shelf and forget that I’ve got them.

Basically it takes me very little time to write a song. If I find myself taking more than an hour to do it I usually forget it, and try something else.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, Just like the ones I used to know, Where the tree tops glisten And children listen To hear sleigh bells in the snow.

If you are halfway smart, and you could really listen to the audience, you could really learn a lot.

Prayer is first of all listening to God. It’s openness. God is always speaking; he’s always doing something.

Big productions, to me, are great – like, I love going to Vegas and seeing shows – but I think that sometimes it’s distracting, especially when you are there to listen to the music.

Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.

A suffering person does not need a lecture – he needs a listener.

It was only until I started to be myself that the music started to flow and people started to listen. So, thank you guys.

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity or you can pick yourself up and say listen, I have to be responsible for myself.