"There has always been a strong relationship between music and religion. It is because they both plug directly into the heart and can have real power for good or evil." "I'm an artist who works incredibly slowly." "I have always loved R.E.M.'s music and respected their commitment to social change." "When I left (Genesis) there was some angst and I think everyone thought I was destroying their careers, but as soon as I left, the band sold a whole lot more records." Talking about why he demanded to write all the lyrics for the last album he made with Genesis: "There are very few books written by a committee, and for a very good reason". "Music is a universal language, it draws people together and proves, as well as anything, the stupidity of racism." "The flap over The Last Temptation of Christ is absurd. If people's faith is so weak that it can be destroyed by a film, then it really isn't much to begin with. I think people may find themselves reviewing their own lives and their own points of view on religion as a result of the film. I'm very proud to have been a part of it." "Just to stay in an all white, all male, all middle class preserve would be very boring for me and very boring for the people who listen to what I do." "African artists are strong, charismatic and compelling, and I think they hold people's attention." "Radiohead, for me, are one of the great bands and one of the reasons is that they're always trying to innovate and push back boundaries, both in their musical work and in their video work." "I've always loved animation since I was a kid and you can do with it anything you can imagine. The idea was to design something that really could hold up to repeated viewing." (Commenting on the "Sledgehammer" video) "There is so much pressure on musicians to look youthful. I've turned my back on my wilder days. I'm much more relaxed now." (Speaking in 2005) "There is something childlike about the basic concept that poverty might be history, that by doing something, some lives might be saved. I would argue that it doesn't matter how many records get sold or how many balding semi-retired musicians like myself get an audience, even if one life gets saved, it's better than sitting on our fat arses complaining about things." "John Lennon was definitely one of my heroes. I think he always wrote from his heart. He was a very complicated individual, but there's an honesty about his songwriting that I think makes it very powerful. Sometimes it's very simplistic, childlike and naive; and that is what gives it some of its strength." "I think that anyone who doesn't have some sense of idealism when they're young is really missing out a bit of their humanity, because you have the chance to go into the world and feel, quite rightly, that it is soon going to be yours and you can change it. I think that's what my generation did with The Beatles at the front of it." "Working with the tours and meeting all the people that felt their lives had literally been saved by Amnesty made it seem like such a simple, elegant and powerful idea. I think that it is a wonderful organization that really deserves a lot of support."