There've been periods where I had to convince the audience or win them over.

There's been a big buzz about the Charlatans in the last couple of years. I've heard the word Charlatans more in the last few years than I'd heard it for the previous 20 years. People would interview me for years and never even mention the Charlatans.

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

I don't think I'd want a revival. I'm not doing a tribute to myself.

I haven't been drinking for years now. Something's got to give. I don't mind that I'm a guy that's stopped drinking, though this interview is making me mighty thirsty.

About 10 years ago, I took some vocal lessons. I'll bet that helped. I got a tape of exercises that the girl gave me, which I don't do anymore, but they were good. And I don't smoke.

And it really is a good feeling to get up there and make that sound. I'm not stuck in a time warp, because I can use as many of the old songs as I want to, just the favorites.

I was always looking to record, but how much I actually pursued it was another thing. The major labels weren't that interested in me, and the smaller labels didn't have any money to do anything.

My stuff was more of a folk coffeehouse thing, with more acoustic guitar, just me doing a single, and then adding on instruments and voices, with emphasis on lyrics and singing and light kind of acoustic jazz.

I guess my idea of a good audience is one that's quiet and listens, but also that's alive: they respond, they're getting the jokes, they're with me. And that' s been happening.

I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.

There's some pictures of me playing hollow bodies, but I never last long. I always come back to the acoustic.

I don't dictate the solos and I don't dictate the vocal harmonies.

Right now, I'm thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.

There've been periods where I had to convince the audience or win them over.

I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.

I am not posh. I went to a comprehensive school.

The hardest part about writing fiction is finding long stretches of time to do it: for me, this means writing mostly on Saturdays and Sundays. But I am always thinking about my characters, jotting down ideas in stolen moments and hoping I'll be able to make sense of them when the weekend rolls around.

The success of the suffrage movement would injure women spiritually and intellectually, for they would be assuming a burden though they knew themselves unable to bear it. It is the sediment, not the wave, of a sex. It is the antithesis of that highest and sweetest mystery - conviction by submission, and conquest by sacrifice.

Ideas are infinite, original, and lively divine thoughts.

I'm an intense guy. I run 10 miles a day, which helps alleviate my intensity. Also, singing helps defuse my intensity. Playing the piano helps, and writing helps.

God is cruel. Sometimes he makes you live.

No compliment can be eloquent except as an expression of indifference.

As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable.

Dreams are real; dreams exert influence.

No advantages in this world are pure and unmixed.

The world moves fast, but change isn't always a good thing when you got it right the first time around.

Technologies like PayPal foster competition because they enable people to shift their funds from one jurisdiction to another, and I think that ultimately will lead to a world in which there's less government power and therefore more individual control.

I'd be happy to have regular face-to-face meetings at Downing Street with David Cameron to argue the case for alternative economic policies.

I'm a germ-phobe when I meet a lot of people or shake a lot of hands. I always have hand sanitizer and alcohol swabs so I can sort of go back and forth between the two.

I was in the game for love. After all, where else can an old-timer with one leg, who can't hear or see, live like a king while doing the only thing I wanted to do?

I guess thats one good thing about dying young youre remembered for your purity vigor and spontaneity. Dying young youre remembered for your youth.

India needs to be liberated both from the 'high GDP growth hedgehogs' and the 'conservation at all costs hedgehogs.'

I play a complicated position in an intensely team-oriented game.

It is not rifles but people who triumph, and the conclusion from all the wars is that we need better people, not better rifles - to win wars, and mainly to avoid them.

People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.

I tend to feel if people say they're going to do something, they will, if given the chance.

When you're acting in a scene, you're focused on doing the scene. You can't break character and go, 'Oh my God, I love what you're doing!'

Who do I think Jack The Ripper was? Do you know, I've got no idea who Jack The Ripper was. No idea.