I'm a perfectionist.

It's good to have to put yourself in someone else's skin. It's all-consuming.

You're either too fat or too thin. You just can't win.

You're only as good as your last record and you could get dropped.

I would have been happy to have waited till I was in my mid- to late-30s before I got married, but you don't choose when these things happen, and when they do, there's no doubt in your mind.

I'm a perfectionist.

The success of Torn was a bit too much for me. I took a year off and was still scared to start the second album.

Happy songs are very difficult to write. How many truly great upbeat songs are there?

I am such a bad liar. I would like to lie, though.

I've done a lot of partying in my time because I didn't want to go home and I didn't know what to do.

I'm such a chameleon. I never get bored.

It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from.

I like the idea of growing old gracefully and full of wrinkles... like Audrey Hepburn.

Enjoy every moment: you never know when things might change.

I know my music probably isn't going to matter to the public after I die, but that doesn't mean I don't have something to offer.

I like singer-songwriters, and I find sad songs comforting rather than depressing. It makes you realise you're not alone in the world.

I seem to have very polite fans, not fanatical ones.

I started dancing when I was three, Scottish dancing.

I wasn't born with a natural talent for songwriting.

I worry unnecessarily.

I'm not a nightclub person, but you need to have a social life sometimes.

I'm quite confident with the way that I look but you find something else to focus on don't you if, I mean I, I have body issues that's my thing so you find something to focus on when you're a perfectionist, I think.

It's not very often that I like new bands.

My mum said I told her I wanted to be a hairdresser during the week and a star on the weekend and that was when I was really young.

There are artists who think they have to be on top all the time. I think that would be exhausting.

There is no kind way to rip the skin off animals' backs. Anyone who wears any fur shares the blame for the torture and gruesome deaths of millions of animals each year.

You feel this pressure that people will take you more seriously if you play guitar, but I've decided I'm a singer and that's enough.

I like to take music from everywhere and put it in my style and let it be accepted.

As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom.

I was really gratified that, of all the episodes of 'Cooked,' the baking one really hit a chord. There were months where there were dozens of loaves posted from people on my Twitter feed every day... And it's a little bit of a guy thing. Most of those loaves put up on Twitter were put up there by guys.

I made a commitment to completely cut out drinking and anything that might hamper me from getting my mind and body together. And the floodgates of goodness have opened upon me - spiritually and financially.

People say, 'What are your hobbies?' I say, 'I've been doing shows ever since I was a kid.' When I left college, all I wanted to be was a musical theater chick. I auditioned tons. It just didn't pan out.

It's tiring to be asked the same questions all day long: 'What is Gangnam style?' and 'Teach me how to dance.'

You make your own path as an actor. Nobody does it for you, so you have to invent yourself.

I know that everyone wants to know about 'Downton Abbey,' but the truth is that it was only a few days out of my life. Still, you play a distinctive part on a hit series, and everyone suddenly knows who you are. Isn't it crazy how this business works?

I'm not anti-immigration.

Of course you're nervous going into a final.

I'm cynical by nature, but I am also very hopeful because I see people from the Left and the Right showing up to these tea parties. You have people, bikers, union members and guys in three-piece suits showing up to these things.

There is a power in people who dream big and who try hard.

There's not a day in my life I'm not proud of being gay, but I just wasn't ready for that attention to be placed on it. I remember being on Oprah. Well, not on Oprah. Near Oprah. She started saying, 'Now, Nathan, you got all those girlie moves going down in 'The Birdcage,' where's all that coming from? You're so good at all that girlie stuff!'

I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway.

Competition for places can only benefit you. If you know you've got that much competition, then you're just going to have to work that extra bit harder so you can catch the gaffer's eye.

I think what you wear really does need to reflect what your own personal style is.

The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair.

I would like to work with anyone in the business who wants to give respect back to the Jamaican vibe.

Breathe through your movements.

The art of the novelist is not unrelated to the illness of multiple personality disorder. It's a much milder form. But the better the book, the nearer to the padded cell you are.

'Baker Towers' is the book I've always known I would write, but it wasn't an easy book to do.

His life, though none too long, Was never dull: Of woman, wine and song Bill had his full.