Chris Martin

Celebrity culture has gone crazy, and I think the reason is that real news is just not bearable, and it also seems impossible to change anything.

I always dream about other musicians. And they're never interested in hanging out with us. It's like being at school and the bigger boys don't want to play with you!

I had a couple of years in the mid-2000s where it was really confusing to me. I was like, 'Why is our band sometimes a punch line?'

We want to make something that moves us when we hear it. Because after all the hype and awards and whatever, that's all music is.

I'm not a great dancer. I'm a great advertisement for freedom of expression. I don't care what you think. I'm having a great time.

I personally really like getting a proper album with artwork and everything.

This person loves tangerines, This person loves raspberries - and my son won't even look at berries. Isn't that amazing? And so I have to apply that to music; otherwise, I would always hide in a hole because of all the people that don't like Coldplay.

You can sometimes get your own feelings across more strongly if you pretend that you're singing it from someone else's angle. But it's always from me. It's just a new way of framing it.

Before our albums are released I feel like we still own it, that we have control over our music. But once it's out there in the world it's no longer ours.

My philosophy at the moment is that I'm great - and so is everybody else. You have to fit your own oxygen mask. That's really my philosophy now: our band is the best band in the world. And so are all the other bands.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

I don't speak particularly well. That's one of the consequences of being extremely ugly.

It's difficult when you're successful, to admit that you need help.

I'm happy in L.A., but I will live wherever my kids are, and I don't really mind where it is.

Although it's painful at the time, most of the things that people have said about us negatively - some of them are true and you can work on them, and the ones that you don't agree with, you don't work on.

Music is split up now into little pockets.

To be totally honest with you, I'm so happy to be alive every day.

Well, once we finish something, I can't really listen to it because all I hear are problems.

Anything that we think is incredible and beautiful and wonderful, we ascribe to something that we don't know what it is.

There comes a point where it doesn't matter how many zeroes are at the end of your bank account.

Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive.

Anyone who criticises me for talking about fair trade is a few pebbles short of a beach. Because everyone should care about it, just like everyone should care about the environment, because we all live here.

I don't mind not being cool.

I know being on a major label is meant to be antiquated, but we're fine with it.

What makes us a bit nervous is, in this instant age, to release something that might take more than one listen. Where everything is instantly judged on YouTube or something! It's a bit like releasing a horse and cart on a racetrack.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

It's more egalitarian on the Internet - anyone can put anything up. But in terms of the money it takes to allow a band to get good, there's less of it to invest.

Being voted the world's sexiest vegetarian is about as cool as it gets. It's not quite as cool as Brad Pitt, but it'll do.

Even though the album is an endangered species, can we try and make a coherent and good one, even if it's like making a horse and cart at a Nascar conference?

You can never say you're big - I don't think you can ever take anything like that for granted.

There's a reason why people who've had bad relationships with their parents listen to angry stuff.

I've never been cool and I don't really care about being cool. It's just an awful lot of time and hair gel wasted.

I never talk about my wife: we're both in public professions but we try to keep our private life private.

Some people misconstrue our band just to be a commercial venture.

Well, I don't like the word 'rock star,' the two words, 'rock star.' Not even 'soft rock star. Not even limestone star. I don't like those words.

I don't drink, I don't take drugs, I don't smoke.

Everyone asks me about being so worried or thinking about existence as if I'm the only person who can't understand why a tree grows the way it does or why a person is in power when they're not that great. These are questions everyone has.

I can't believe we've got away with becoming this huge band. And we still haven't done anything I think is that good yet.

Anything where we're the butt of the joke, no one tells us about it.

Being such a big band is never a problem but it can be distracting.

Anything that we think is incredible and beautiful and wonderful we ascribe to something that we dont know what it is.

Men should always change diapers. Its a very rewarding experience. Its mentally cleansing. Its like washing dishes but imagine if the dishes were your kids so you really love the dishes.

When you're on your fifth album, you are going to be judged against all your previous work and expectations.

Economically, unfair trade will benefit nobody in the long run, as poorer countries will be bled totally dry and will become unable to produce anything.

Going through something difficult in your life, music, for me, is always a friend and something that helps you to figure things out.

You can try to be catchy without being slick, poppy without being pop, and you can be uplifting without being pompous. Because we're sometimes playing quieter stuff, it's hard to sound like we're trying to change things, but we wanted to be a reaction against soulless rubbish.

I just want to make the best music of all time with my best friends.

So I have probably 1,200 little bits of paper with notes, which when the Ambien really starts to kick in, don't really make much sense. Say what you like about prescription drugs, but they do help when you're sequencing a record.

You've got to express yourself in life, and it's better out than in. What you reveal, you heal.

I don't actually own a car.

Maybe it's because I'm English, but in terms of how people perceive us I only pick up on the negative side of it.

If you want to be depressed every day, there's plenty of material. The world is crazy.

More idiots should just shut their mouths.

I genuinely love Oasis, and I also genuinely love Beyonce. My body gets the same pleasure. If you like different types of music, it's OK to say it.

Coldplay fans are the best in the world. If you like Coldplay then you're obviously very intelligent and good looking and all-around brilliant.

I think it's part of being English, particularly if you are middle-class - you're always looking to be reminded that you are no good and you are always actually embarrassed about being successful.

You gotta wear the right trousers if you're gonna be a rock star.

I think we're a band with a lot of history now so it's nice to come up with something that doesn't have any history at all.

Record sales don't really mean anything. For us, the pressure is imagining some 15-year-old kid in Cincinnati who buys our album and doesn't feel like he wasted his pocket money.

We aren't cool and never will be.

Looking after your ears is unfortunately something you don't think about until there's a problem.

Even when other people don't expect a lot out of you,you have to take the initiative.

You know, it's possible for two humans to be in a relationship without there needing to be some public reason for that relationship.

Men should always change diapers. Its mentally cleansing. Its like washing dishes but imagine if the dishes were your kids so you really love the dishes.

I'm just a public-schoolboy. I've got a degree. I'm from a middle-class family in Devon. I've got no story.

A band's only unique thing is its chemistry, especially if none of you are prodigious players or particularly handsome. The one thing you have is your uniqueness, so we hold on to that.

I have a very wonderful separation-divorce. It's a divorce - but it's a weird one.

I could be walking down the street one minute and get a handshake and then get spat on the next. I'm never sure whether to wear gloves or a helmet.

I think that the fact that a relationship becomes public is a bit of a bummer. Because it can distract from the real reason why you're together, which is that you just like each other.

If a few companies were less greedy, the people at the bottom woud have a lot more.

I'm petrified of reincarnation because, you know, I like being me.

The goal is to try and make the perfect song. Which of course will never happen.

I do worry - a lot.

I'm not sure if I can whip, but I can nae nae with the best of them.

I've had tinnitus for about ten years, and since I started protecting my ears it hasn't got any worse - touch wood.

I do an hour's yoga and go running every day. Then I see a picture of myself and I still look like a skinny, potbellied idiot - and I thought I had turned into this superhunk!

I think shareholders are the great evil of this modern world.

I get more people approaching me about how good I was in 'Napoleon Dynamite' than being in Coldplay.

I have my moments - usually twice every album - when I basically lose it.

Music comes from a place we don't know.

If you don't let love in, then you can't really give it back.

I'm competitive with anyone who writes a good song - I don't care if it's a band or solo artist or whoever.

What was I like as a kid? The same as I am now, just smaller with a higher voice.