“You can’t win fame; you have to earn it. If you’re given fame without working for it, then you’re not going to be ready for it.”

There’s no point thinking about dying, because it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it? I don’t waste my time worrying about that.

I can’t say I was really that surprised when the doctor told me I needed a defibrillator inserted in my chest.

People don’t know how to be outrageous anymore.

I don’t know, I’ve always written songs that are mainly about attitude, not me personally.

As for what other people think of me, I don’t care. I don’t care and never have.

Just ’cause something’s popular, it can still be good. In fact, if more people are buying it, then you must be doing something right.

I was brought up by two women: my mother and my grandmother.

I was lucky: I didn’t get married, so I didn’t have to have that responsibility.

I always write about war, love, death, and injustice. There’s plenty of that around, so I never run out of ideas.

Got two kids; one’s a record producer who lives just up the road from me – great guitarist and piano player, too.

I hate golf! I still can’t believe Alice Cooper plays golf!

It’s very much up to you, how you shape your life. I mean, I missed out on human relationships. But looking at relationships that I’ve seen along the way, I don’t think I’ve missed much.

Oh, I listened to a lot of the blues. I love the blues. You know, Slim Harpo, people like that, and Sonny Boy Williamson.

I listen to everything from Ravel to the Bee Gees.

Bomber’ was the first song I wrote about war.

I don’t really admire musicianship per se – as is obvious from my own playing.

For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.

Such was not quite the condition of Timothy’s on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy’s soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte’s body, and Smither kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and house whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day.

I do like a bit of danger. Guns, cars, running, bullets. I’m up for it.

If there is a God what the hell is He for?

Although lynchings have steadily increased in number and barbarity during the last twenty years, there has been no single effort put forth by the many moral and philanthropic forces of the country to put a stop to this wholesale slaughter.

For me, as a 14-year-old aspiring to be in the NBA, I wanted to hear from players.

For me, it always goes back to something I learned in basketball.

For more than two generations, my family had never achieved their ambitions. Their talents were unappreciated and unused. They deserved better. They hadn’t done anything wrong; they just had some bad breaks.