The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.

I'd never try to be that distinctive from the Bee Gees' sound. I'm very proud of being a Bee Gee and am always aware that I'll be identified as a Bee Gee.

I'm really happy that I got to work with such fresh talent. In a day when record companies are not particularly good at encouraging young, talented songwriters to come forward and get exposure, I think it's important to give tomorrow's songwriters the opportunity.

You know, we'd just had a birthday, he was... you know, he still had a future out of him, and all I can is he was just one of the most beautiful people in the world... a very gifted man, and it's a loss to the world, not just for us.

I think for anybody, any family, and I know there are families out there that are going through this even now, that it is the hardest thing in the world. Nobody is ever prepared for it.

With Maurice suddenly going, I realised... I think I've matured. I don't take things lightly any more.

I haven't really met anyone else who has influenced me, but you never know, it could happen next year or next month. I just like to go with the spur of the moment.

It just felt like the right time to focus on solo material.

When Maurice touched a keyboard, it was like something from a movie, magical. He would always give you something from a movie, and you'd go, what did you just play... immediately inspirational writings, amazing. That's what we're going to miss.

The Bee Gees, to us, was the three brothers. In Maurice's name, we would respect that and not be the Bee Gees anymore.

I find it very, very hard. He was part of the fabric of my life. We were kids together, and teenagers. We spent the whole of our lives with each other because of our music.

We've been in each other's pockets our entire lives.

I don't take things for granted, because everything feels more fragile. It's made me wonder about mortality and how long you've got somebody in the world. I'm more fearful than I used to be.

Music became an obsession, and eventually we felt more comfortable with each other then we did with anyone else. The three of us were like one person.

You're looking at the Bee Gees right now.

We said we'd fly the flag without him and carry on. I didn't give him a kiss because I still hadn't accepted what was happening. I was hoping that some miracle was going to happen. Of course, it didn't. I wish I had kissed him now.

I'll never get used to living without Mo, but the painful things that surround what happened to him aren't so painful any more-not so raw or so new.

In the beginning, Barry and I couldn't decide if we were going got go forward with the name of the Bee Gees or just as Barry and Robin. Now we've decided to continue as the Bee Gees because we feel we can, and Maurice would have wanted it.

It makes us feel better that everyone out there is thinking of Maurice.

We will pursue every factor, every element, every second of the timeline, of the final hours of Maurice's life. We will pursue that relentlessly. That will be our quest from now on.

As the plane got closer to Miami, I had this terrible feeling he was dying. Maybe he was telling me that he was going. I felt anger, panic, despair and helplessness.

Nobody will ever take Maurice's place, and he'll go on with us and he'll go on our music. He'll go on with us as the Bee Gees, and Maurice will always be with us.

I hadn't accepted he was seriously ill. The idea that someone so close to you couldn't wake up was utterly incomprehensible. Then the doctor came in... Maurice had no brain left. There wasn't any activity at all.

If the heart stops for more than two minutes, you have massive brain death. There are only two minutes between our conscious world and zero. That's how fragile our consciousness is.

Everyone's looking to the urban scene for inspiration now.

I'm not a party person or someone who likes to sit and drink in clubs all night, and never really have been. I have a good time through work.

The Bee Gees were always heavily influenced by black music. As a songwriter, it's never been difficult to pick up on the changing styles of music out there, and soul has always been my favourite genre.

I don't have too much faith in destiny, or an afterlife. This is it.

I don't like lifts and will walk up 20 flights of stairs if I have to. Crowded rooms make me uncomfortable, too, although I can sing to a stadium full of thousands of people no bother.

I sometimes wonder if the tragedies my family has suffered are a kind of karmic price for all the fame and fortune the Bee Gees have had.

Lots of people aren't comfortable with silences. They feel they've got to fill the dead air.

Music is being treated as one big karaoke machine.

My idea of a good time is creating something and reading a good book.

Rarely do I attach guilt to something pleasant. Life's too short.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

My singing is my hobby. It's me and my brother. We just enjoy writing music.

I was determined to carve out a music of my own. I didn't want to copy anybody.

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand.