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My parents weren't keen on the giving up of school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it, they gave support. I was quite stubborn about my decision, and in the end, they realised it was for the best.

Kate Bush

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I have a theory that there are still parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age of between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up.

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But I don't have a very good track record with royalty. My dress fell off in front of Prince Charles at the Prince's Trust, so I'm just living up to my reputation.

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Albums are like diaries. You go through phases, technically and emotionally, and they reflect the state that you're in at the time.

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It's so fascinating to think about how each snowflake is completely individual - there are millions and millions of them, but each one is so unique.

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Sometimes when I'm going to the supermarket to get the coffee and cat litter, I get freaked out and see all these people staring, and you turn around and there's, like, 40 people all looking at you... and when you go around the corner, they're all following you! You start freaking out like a trapped animal.

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I'm the shyest megalomaniac you're ever likely to meet.

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It's not important to me that people understand me.

Understand UN Tan

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I think we all feel geeky at times, don't we? Isn't that all a part of the wonderful tapestry of life?

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I'm a very strong person, and I think that's why, actually, I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature.'

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I think quotes are very dangerous things.

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I have to say I find it totally astounding that my albums do as well as they do. It's quite extraordinary, and it's actually very touching for me for the albums to be received with such warmth.

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That's what all art's about - a sense of moving away from boundaries that you can't in real life. Like a dancer is always trying to fly, really - to do something that's just not possible. But you try to do as much as you can within those physical boundaries.

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I love being with my friends, relaxing and talking.

Love Wit Talking

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I was writing from the age of 10, and I was never really into going to discos and dances and stuff. I never told anyone at school that I did that because I feared it would alienate me even more.

Fear Age Writing

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I do have the odd dream where I'm on stage and I've completely forgotten what I'm meant to be performing - so they are more nightmares than dreams.

Dreams Age Where

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I don't aim for perfection. But I do want to try and come up with something interesting.

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My parents weren't keen on the giving up of school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it, they gave support. I was quite stubborn about my decision, and in the end, they realised it was for the best.

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It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding, do you think?

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School was a very cruel environment, and I was a loner. But I learnt to get hurt, and I learnt to cope with it.

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I don't really see myself as a celebrity, but more as a sort of mitre.

Writing, film, sculpture, music: it's all make-believe, really.

I think it's important that things are flawed.

The more I got into presenting things to the world, the further it was taking me away from what I was, which was someone who just used to sit quietly at a piano and sing and play. It became very important to me not to lose sight of that.

The music industry is in such poor shape; it's in a really bad way, and a lot of people in the industry are very depressed.

I used to enjoy bad television, like really bad quiz programmes or sitcoms.

I didn't really feel that there were any filler tracks on 'The Red Shoes,' but if I were to do that album now, I wouldn't make it so long.

The freedom you feel when you're actually in control of your own music is fantastic.

My first Top of the Pops I didn't want to do. I was terrified. I'd never done television before. Seeing the video afterwards was like watching myself die.

Since I was 17, I had been just making records and promoting them.

In your teens, you get the physical puberty, and between 28 and 32, mental puberty. It does make you feel differently.

Clothes are such a strong part of who a human being is.

I don't listen to my old stuff very often at all.

Obviously I try to make the best music that I can, but after about two years of making an album, you start to worry: 'Is it going to come out all right? Is it all going to sound churned out?'

My music can be a little obscure. It does worry me that the music might be too complicated for people to take in - that they have to work too hard at it.

I have this desire in the back of my mind now of making music and film at the same time - putting the two together.

There is a figure that is adored, but I'd question very strongly that it's me.

My father was always playing the piano. He played all kinds of music - Gershwin, all kinds of stuff.

I guess what all artists want is for their work to touch someone or for it to be thought provoking.

I think I was just lucky to be brought up in a very musical family. My two older brothers were, and still are, very musical and very creative, and music was a big part of my life from a very young age, so it is quite natural for me to become involved in music in the way that I did.

Quite understandably, people think that if there's a six-year gap or whatever, that it's taken me six years to make the album. It's not really like that at all.

I work in a very contained environment, usually.

I think that there's always room for humour in music. It's something that always takes itself so seriously, which I think is a bit of a shame.

I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.

I had friends but I was spending a great deal of my time alone and for me that was vital because there's an awful lot you learn about yourself when you're alone.

I suppose the worst case scenario is that people will get to the point where they can't actually afford to make what they want to make creatively. The industry is collapsing.

I hear odd tracks from my albums every now and again on the radio, or maybe a friend plays me something.

It's not my ambition to be a big star.

My life and my work are very interlocked. That's partly why I like to keep my private life private.

I think snow is so evocative and has such a powerful atmosphere.

My friends sometimes used to ignore me completely, and that would really upset me badly.