“I consider my job [being a musician] is to have a little idea and nurture it and put it in some form that everybody else can understand and then sort of pass it on. It’s really a passing through. In other words, you receive and you transmit.”

I’m free of hypochondria– although I’ve got everything else.

Everybody’s got a different way of telling a story – and has different stories to tell.

When I listen to what I did under the influence – 10 years of work – I don’t think it either enhanced or impaired me. It didn’t have that much to do with it.

I’ve never turned blue in someone else’s bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners.

If you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses because they’re asleep.

I have no idea what the audience makes of me.

I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.

But I’ve always felt very comfortable on stage, even if I screw up. It always felt like a dog, this is my turf, piss around it. While I’m here, nothing else can happen. All I can do is screw up. Otherwise, have a good time.

Some things get better with age. Like me.

To a musician or songwriter, your canvas is silence.

One of the great things about songwrighting; it’s not an intellectual experience.

I only get ill when I give up drugs. I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem.

We age not by holding on to youth, but by letting ourselves grow and embracing whatever youthful parts remain.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

The electric guitar was vital in helping what I’ve achieved where would I be without it? Playing awfully quietly, for a start.

I look for ambiguity when I’m writing because life is ambiguous.

It’s exciting having a student who is not used to expressing their emotional side and bringing that out in them and see that developing and helping to nurture that.

It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

What nurtures this root and makes it grow into a tree is the script. What makes the tree bear flowers and fruit is the directing.

One has to nurture a new generation, to raise children in the spirit of Islam.

Be mindful, be compassionate and nurture the circumstances that find you in this good time so it will last longer.

Cultivates and nurtures an entirely new species of headache.

Creative thinking – in terms of idea creativity – is not a mystical talent. It is a skill that can be practised and nurtured.

Remember to set apart at least one hour every day to do some service for others. While the food we eat nurtures our bodies, it is what we give in charity that nurtures our souls. If time is not available daily, reserve at least a few hours every week for some worthwhile act of charity.