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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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'.

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

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

The fascinating thing about human beings is that they dont last and everything eventuates and everything is very very brief. And even if you do manage to look reasonably well as you age unfortunately you are attacked at every level by illness and so forth. Its a fact of life.

Why pamper life’s complexities when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat?

But I found a lot of artists at the Cedar Bar were difficult for me to talk to.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.

I got to sit down with people who I admired, and have conversations with some of the greatest thinkers and artists and performers. It's a huge privilege for me to be a journalist.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

David Cronenberg knows what we actors do as artists.

The truth is, we haven't really figured out yet how artists are going to thrive in modern mass societies. We're all experiments.

Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.

A great thing happening now in art is that artists are using the figure, the body, clothing, life.

The number of contemporary artists who appeal to me is infinitesimal.

I have to plead basic ignorance of most new jazz artists here.

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists.

Because when the film was first mooted, the Beatles didn't like the idea at all. In fact they wouldn't have any part in it. And when Brian had committed them, it was part of a deal he did with United Artists, I think.

Artists are like everybody else.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

My proudest achievement has been the success of the shows and artists I have been involved with, because they were made in Britain.

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one's obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

I didn't want to save art - I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn't know what I would do.

Music is more emotional than prose, more revolutionary than poetry. I'm not saying I've got the answers, just a of questions that I don't hear other artists asking.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

I've never understood why artists, who so often condescend to the cliches of their own culture, are so eager to embrace the cliches of cultures they know nothing about.

I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me.

Let's look at people as artists and try to support them; just because Picasso painted a couple of bad paintings, that's no reason to say he's a lousy painter.

Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

I hate artists who are not of their time.

Labels only confuse people. The smarter people recognize artists who transcend categories. But I always try to entertain. It's in my nature; writers are born to entertain. If that means working ostensibly within a genre, fine.

I hope and believe we are paving a better future for female artists to come.

For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.

One of the makeup artists once dyed my dog blue with vegetable blue.

I made it easier for many artists to play in certain areas.

Success breeds volume, and it's just amazing how many young writers, artists, and musicians there are in town.

It's something I've always loved doing. I'm not one of the artists who comes in and just does my bit. I'm there every second of every day. That's my hands-on situation.