When I'm lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.
Morrissey
The monarchy is foremost a business, and it's important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless 'royal' family. I find it very sad.
What's the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn't.
I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.
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.
Life's full of tricky snakes and ladders.
Peru, Peru. My heart's lighthouse.
No British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher.
We're all lonely, but I'd rather be lonely by myself than with a long list of duties and obligations. I think that's why people kill themselves, really.
Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.
Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.
Reggae is vile.
Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society.
Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.
All of us, ultimately, we're not that interesting, when it comes down to it.
My talents do not lie in DIY.
I do think it's possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.
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.
I'm cursed with the gift of foresight.
I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.
Once somebody is known, it seems as though anybody anywhere can say anything about them. Whereas if I simply stopped someone in the street and criticised their clothes, their work, their parents, their inner being, I'd be sued and I'd be thrown in prison.
The Royal family to me are not England, and they are not the flag.
Artists aren't really people. I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache.
England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.
The rhino is now more or less extinct, and it's not because of global warming or shrinking habitats. It's because of Beyonce's handbags.
I've never intended to be controversial, but it's very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.
The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble - famous and meaningless.
Congratulations to Prince Charles for banning foie gras from all his functions.
I'm capable of looking on the bright side. I just don't do it very often.
The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.
I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.
I think I'd be a prime candidate for canonisation.
Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.
As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters.
I think we were all initially swept along with the Obama win, but he's proven to be simply a set of teeth, and useless in every other regard.
The Queen is the ultimate dictator.
I'm not an anarchist, but I believe that people don't want the royal family - the so-called royal family.
The word 'indie' is meaningless now. It's so over-used that people think it simply means green hair.
The most common phrase bandied about these days is 'Oh my God'. People say it automatically all the time - not realising that that's a form of prayer.
If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.
When you're younger, you see the people who are in power and think they must have that position because of some degree of skill. And as you get older, you realize it's not true, that most people in those positions are absolutely inept. And this naturally makes you feel better about yourself.
I first bought a Buffy Sainte-Marie record when I was 12, and her music has always remained with me. In the 1960s, as a political activist, Buffy's lyrics were fearless, and I'm very grateful for all the risks that she took.
I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one.
I don't even know if I exist offstage.
I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.
There has to reach a point where you've said enough.
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.
My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.
As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave... walking the plank... willingly... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.
Even though I've been reasonably well known for quite a long time, I still can't get a record on daytime radio or on MTV.
