I love being on my bike, but I don't consider that a sport: it's too pleasant.
John Cooper Clarke
If you want to know why the coast is such an inspirational place, ask Herman Melville, Jack London, Nordhoff and Hall, Robert Louis Stevenson or Joseph Conrad. It's a glimpse of eternity. It invites rumination, the relentless whisper of the tide against the shore.
The only casual item I own is a Levi's jacket.
Lyrics became important for a while in the late Seventies. Patti Smith was a poet and a rock star, as much one as the other, the distinctions were a bit blurred and then you get swept up in it. Punk poet, it's a good enough term.
To make the hips the focal point of a pair of trousers is, to me, a fashion mistake.
I don't think 'Citizen Kane' stands more than one watch. Power corrupts. Who didn't know that?
All the best musicians started out in church; Jesus invented rock 'n' roll.
My look was based on the Madison Avenue guy who's just lost his job. Ivy League suit a bit scuzzed up, an outgrown layer cut and five o'clock shadow.
The greatest threat to any artist is surrounding themselves with people who love everything they do.
Well, I've obviously been a great source of inspiration to the academic population of Salford! They're citing me as a major contribution to their upward trajectory!
Happiness is the target one only has to aim at in order to miss.
I write with pen and paper. I don't have a mobile or computer, because I know how great they are. If I did, I'd never leave the house - you'd find me in six months, dead under a pile of pizza boxes.
If you don't like The Ramones, you don't like rock 'n'roll. They're like The Beach Boys without the sea.
Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry.
There are only three things that stop me sleeping: hunger, the odd bad dream and cramp in the arches of my feet - it's crippling, as if somebody's trying to tie your foot in a reef knot.
I hate chickpeas. I like hummus but I ate that before I realised it was made out of chickpeas.
Not everyone is prepared for fame, not even at the level I got it. One minute you're just a face in the crowd, next minute everyone wants a piece of you.
I wanted to get rich, like anyone from my background.
You know how the Marvel Comics superheroes formed themselves into the Justice League of America - Batman, Flash and the rest. Why did Superman join? He never needed any help.
I enjoy gigging in industrial towns. It seems to be where I go down the best. Somewhere where they have a history of manufacturing, they're my favourite places to play.
I'm not fond of crowds. I'm no jittery neurotic, but I don't really want to be surrounded by a lot of people if I have a choice.
Where's the mileage in an autobiography? Anyone who writes one inevitably casts themselves as a hero, and I'm not about to do that.
I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.
I don't have secrets, my life's an open book.
I crack myself up. Even I don't know what I'm going to say next.
I was too old to be a punk rocker. I was a mod, that's really the only youth tribe I ever belonged to - and even then, not for very long.
I love Charles Baudelaire. Him and Shakespeare are the only people I think are better than me.
A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour.
Where I grew up, the one unmistakable sign of homosexuality was to betray some interest in your appearance.
I ain't got a credit card, a mobile phone or a computer. Call me sentimental. I think that's a whole world of trouble I ain't got no business setting foot in. And you know what? It feels good.
There is a certain sentimental vibe in my home town of Manchester, which you would sort of expect.
I'd like to be rich, but without all the downside of fame.
I never saw a painting that would not be improved by the addition of tropical fish.
My dad was an electrical engineer.
The first time I heard rock'n'roll on a big sound system would have been at a fairground at the seaside. That's a hell of a sensory experience right there.
Poets are supposed to be underappreciated, don't you know? There is always a strange reaction to those who become successful in their own lifetime, and so I always felt lucky that I made the living I did out of it.
My trouser needs are simple: a narrow leg in a dark colour, with jean detailing.
If I'd have known how much fun fatherhood would be, I would have started way earlier than 45.
Idleness - a job that you have to go to, but not necessarily do anything - is the poet's friend.
I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.
I love the Arctic Monkeys!
Somebody up there likes me. It ain't like I've followed a well trodden trajectory.
Find a poet whose style you like, emulate that style, then deal with things that you know about - don't waste your time looking for your own style.' I wish I could remember who told me that, because I'd like to congraulate him. I've emulated all the old guys - Tennyson, Alexander Pope.
I'm dead fussy about food: I don't eat junk.
I've got a speech impediment.
The very pointlessness of a sea walk is it's attractiveness to me.
It was a tedious saying among hippies: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I was very much part of the problem.
I'm a great believer in the capsule wardrobe - a wardrobe where's there's a limited palate of black colours.
I love talking about anything, except for myself.
I was pushing for a career in poetry and of course the received wisdom was that you would never make a living at it.
