"When I'm lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me." "Don't talk to me about people who are "nice" cause I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are "nice"." "Artists aren't really people. And I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache." "All I said was 'bring me the head of Elton John', which would be one instance when meat would not be murder, if it was on a plate." "That was the problem with the 'celibate' word because they don't consider for a moment that you'd rather not be, but you just are. I was never a sexual person." "Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'." "My parents were worried about me, certainly when I became so deeply interested in music and people like the New York Dolls who, at the time, were very peculiar indeed." "The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music." "There are indeed worse groups than Modern Romance. But can anybody seriously think of one?" "Having never been sufficiently drunk to enjoy a Level 42 record, I prescribe the Burmese neck ring to these chumps for being so icy." "Oasis are very tame to me. At a time when they have the spotlight of the world on them, they should have made the most revolutionary, creative record and instead it's practically awful. For a song which is trying so hard to create hooks, it doesn't really have any. God bless Noel; I'm sure he'll always have a spot on 'Bob's Full House', but I search for something with more bite and rage." "I do think it's possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you." "I've never intended to be controversial but it's very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is." "Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?" "I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living." "That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up." "You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you're doing, and I can manage that." "In England, pop music seems now to be exclusively for children. Lavish promotional campaigns are meant to blind audiences to the uselessness of an artist. If an artist is no good, why is it necessary to have that artist repeatedly rammed in our face?" (Speaking in 2003) "I think Band Aid was diabolical. I think Bob Geldof is a nauseating character. Many people find that very unsettling, but I'll say it as loud as anyone wants me to. In the first instance the record itself was absolutely tuneless. One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of England. It was an awful record considering the mass of talent involved. And it wasn't done shyly - it was the most self-righteous platform ever in the history of popular music." "Elton John is pushing his face in all the time and telling us about his private life. Nobody's interested, he's incredibly rich and he's just hoisting his problems on to everybody and working them out publicly. He should just go away." "The public are losing interest. You can have a number one album these days with 30,000 sales, which is really pathetic when you think of the 70s or the 80s when you could sell over 100,000 and you would be coming in at number five or six." (Speaking in 2002) I've always assumed there's a dark river flowing beneath my fans' desires. "Age shouldn't affect you. It's just like the size of your shoes - they don't determine how you live your life! You're either marvellous or you're boring, regardless of your age." "Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death." On rap music: "I really do think it's a great musical stench. I find it very offensive, artless and styleless. To me it's very reminiscent of thuggery, pop thuggery. I don't want to hear it at all." "I don't belong to any political groups, I don't really say anything unless I'm asked directly and I don't even demonstrate in public." "The Brits are ghastly and there has never been a time when they haven't got it wrong. For me to ever accept a Brit, well, I never would. It would be like Laurence Olivier being happy getting a TV Times award." (On the Brit Awards) "With people in the world such as 'Jamie Oliver' (II) and Clarissa Dickson-Wright there isn't much hope for animals."