Sting

I come from a family of losers, and I've rejected my family as something I don't want to be like.

If you make your living writing, and you can't write anything, it's over. It's very frightening.

An uncle of mine emigrated to Canada and couldn't take his guitar with him. When I found it in the attic, I'd found a friend for life.

I was recruited to teach 9-year-olds. I taught for two years.

Intellectually I'm probably a Republican.

I exist in a state of almost perpetual hysteria.

I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.

Melancholy is no bad thing.

I feel this music has nurtured me as I've been immersing myself in it. I've felt supported by it.

I want to get old gracefully. I want to have good posture, I want to be healthy and be an example to my children.

It's a big enough umbrella, but it's always me that ends up getting wet.

Defending human rights requires vigilance, doggedness and a strong, global force for good.

I really wanted to work with David Lynch. I was a big fan of The Elephant Man and Eraserhead.

There's no religion but sex and music.

I think there's room for both private exploration and group work in Yoga.

I always stayed fit because I'm a performer, and all of those things help me to perform.

I'm very much afraid of being mad - that's my one fear.

The more irrational of us are worried about the millennium ending - as if a date would really matter.

I'm not much of a family man. I'm just not that into it. I love kids, I adore them, but I don't want to live my life for them.

I can't fly a flag for monogamy or whatever the opposite is; it depends on the person and on the situation.

One of the rewards of success is freedom, the ability to do whatever you like.

When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.

I realize that nothing's as it seems.

I don't need to manufacture trauma in my life to be creative. I have a big enough reservoir of sadness or emotional trauma to last me.

I made two movies before The Police had a hit record: I did Quadrophenia and a film called Radio On.

It's never easy to write a song. It's the most difficult thing I do.

The logical process will often be the safe one. I tend, when I'm given that choice, to go the way that's not safe.

Peter Townshend shows us it's all right to grow up. There is dignity after rock'n'roll.

Hell is full of high court judges.

Love is stronger than justice.

Great music as much about the space in between the notes as it is about the notes themselves.

I learned to change my accent; in England, your accent identifies you very strongly with a class, and I did not want to be held back.

My friends are Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, and we're singing about mortality, getting older. It's an interesting time.

The Super Bowl is Americana at its most kitsch and fun.

The acceptance of death gives you more of a stake in life, in living life happily, as it should be lived. Living for the moment.

I can't really change my life to accommodate people who are jealous. I don't see why I should.

I've only paid lip service to a spiritual life.

I've spent a bit of time with the Prince of Wales, who I respect greatly. I'd give two cheers for the Monarchy.

Success always necessitates a degree of ruthlessness. Given the choice of friendship or success, I'd probably choose success.

I think love has something to do with allowing a person you claim to love to enter a larger arena than the one you create for them.

I don't understand American football at all. It looks like all-in wrestling with crash helmets.

I see songs not as a commodity used up when the album goes off the charts, which is often the case with pop songs. I see them as a body of work. Life should be breathed into them.

Yoga is almost like music in a way; there's no end to it.

I don't like singing before noon.

I have been through various fitness regimes. I used to run about five miles a day and I did aerobics for a while.

Like Yoga, the spiritual life is actually very difficult.

I think I'm a focus for international attention.

If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is its own reward.

I try to give the media as many confusing images as I can to retain my freedom. What's real is for my children and the people I live with.

I have a big problem with piped music. I like either silence or to listen to it properly.

I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set.

It has very little to do with my work, but if your image is not sexy enough, people won't listen. It's part of the game.

I miss England. I miss the weather. I've spent moss of the last 25 years on tour. I'm ready to come home.

I was brought up as a Catholic and went to church every week and took the sacraments. It never really touched the core of my being.

The deeper you get into Yoga you realize it is a spiritual practice. It's a journey I'm making. I'm heading that way.

I think you can get the wrong impression about me from my work and think I'm always a bit down. I'm not that way at all. I'm fun-loving.

I'm not speaking as someone who has reached satori or anything else. I'm a student.

I was famous overnight. I went from nowhere to being really big.

I do my best work when I am in pain and turmoil.

I hate most of what constitutes rock music, which is basically middle-aged crap.

It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile.

Yoga introduced me to a style of meditation. The only meditation I would have done before would be in the writing of songs.

That sense of failure, I don't know where people put it who don't write songs and aren't able to emote physically. It must go somewhere.

I've never lost perspective on who I am. Well, maybe briefly, but generally I'm pretty balanced.