The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.

When I’m lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.

I do think it’s possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.

Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?

Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death.

You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you’re doing, and I can manage that.

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.

Artists aren’t really people. And I’m actually 40 per cent papier mache.

The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.

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.

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’.

I’ve never intended to be controversial but it’s very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.

That’s why I do this music business thing, it’s communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.

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.

I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.