Don't shift because fashion has shifted. Don't move from the original ethic you had, the original reasons. They're part and parcel of you.

I was determined if I was going to become a superstar it would be on my terms. I've had that ethic since the beginning.

I'm an amalgam of the 19th-century romantics and the beat poets.

I'm careful, controlled, bodily conservative: if someone offered me a pill I'd only ever take a half.

I've seen such things as you would not believe. I've seen motorbikes driven down hotel corridors - and had a go myself.

It's fantastic to put your hands in the earth. I enjoy spending my time in heaven here. I don't care what you say, this is my heaven.

What is our destiny? Does it matter? Is it bound up with 'our' planet? In my opinion, yes.

I'd just like to prove to myself that I'm all here and all together and can get the best out of myself. I'd also like to prove that to a couple of other people.

I'm attending to my legacy, making sure that it travels the universe in the best shape I can get it into. For as long as I'm alive, I'll still be its interpreter.

I'm inspired by the poets, so I'm always going to give in that direction, rather than in any other. It's the making of me... and also the downfall of me.

If humanity was still in the feral state, we wouldn't have any need for these huge conurbations that we have now, that have turned us into a different bunch all together. In the feral state we would be much more secure, much more familiar with each other, much more mentally well-balanced.

In some ways, I lament the introduction of civilisation on such a huge scale, because it has given us a lot of room to abuse each other, which we continue to do.

Remember, this was a world that was still ethnically separated. I was thirteen and ignorant of the social situation in America, but I felt these records were better than what my own culture was turning out.