“I have not practiced how to be a singer without an instrument.”

Out of all those millions and millions of planets floating around there in space, this is our planet, this is our little one, so we just got to be aware of it and take care of it.

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.

Daniel Levitin takes the most sophisticated ideas that exist about the brain and mind, applies them to the most emotionally direct art we have, our songs, and makes beautiful music of the two together.

I started out to be a person on the street, just like everybody else. I didn’t start out to be a singer. But I got sort of swept up in this singing thing, and after I got involved in it it got really important to me if I was good or not.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

People saw me as just a singer – yeah, a pretty face who could sing – and not more than that.

Anyone who’s got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some ’50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That’s it, really – I’m not a musician, I’m not a singer.

Because I came out as a singer, I took the time to get an acting coach.

They call her my singer – because her blood sings for me.