“Being in the audience actually looks like quite a lot of fun.”

We live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us.

Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing.

Sometimes you write a song in a certain era and it’s got a certain kind of significance.

To get a big hit single you’ve got to go a bit dance. You’ve got to go a bit Britney. I don’t think I can do that – well, I could but it wouldn’t look very seemly!.

Painting is similar to music. You get a couple or words or notes or chords that excite you, and you just follow them and add a bit more and see where it takes you. That’s the thrill for me. It still is a thrill, which is amazing after all this time.

Transcendental Meditation gives me an island of calm in the midst of so much turbulence.

Sadness isn’t sadness. It’s happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They’re balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It’s life that’s jumped off a tall cliff.

You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.

None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.

I realized marvelling at nature was a deep pleasure of mine.

The thing you must remember is that I’m the Number One John Lennon fan. I love him to this day and I always did love him

So, if I’m cooking, I’ll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff.

Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don’t always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on.

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better. It’s a little better all the time.

There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway.

It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ I thought, this is it.

No one who has experienced facing a screaming, boiling, hysterical audience can avoid feeling shivers in the spine. It’s a thin line between celebration and menace.

I like making money like anybody else, and I’m paid well, but I think there is a point at which you can out-price your audience or your base.

When I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience.

I’ve never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I’m pleasantly surprised when it does.

It would drive the photographers crazy because I would giggle and tell jokes. I was gregarious, and looking back, I realize I had a captive audience.

I have no idea what the audience makes of me.

I’m getting to a point in my life where my whole attitude about the relationship between myself and the audience is totally different.

Some artists never see their work in front of an audience.