Quotes from Alex Turner

You don't meet that many people that you can talk about Roots Manuva with, but that was my favorite in school, this record of his called 'Run Come Save Me.' When I first started writing lyrics, it came from that.

There's something about a Gucci loafer kicking on a fuzz pedal.

I'm like the Ben Affleck of crowd surfing.

There's something to be said for writing in the morning. At other points in the day, you're a bit more defensive.

I'm not really one for collaborations, to be quite honest.

Sometimes I don't want to be in the confines of what a band seems to provide.

I know my lyrics might be weird to some, but they're not like that to me because I know where they come from - I know the secret.

There have always been jokes all over our songs; I originally started writing lyrics to make my friends crack a smile, which is difficult.

Guitar music or rock n' roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it'll never go away completely. It can't die because it's so fundamentally attractive.

I'm not even sure where home is. Probably Terminal 5. There is a strange sense of calm about arriving back at Heathrow.

You spend your time thinking about that and you get lost in reflection.

Every time you write a song, you're looking for some sort of perfection, and you never quite reach it. You're always looking for that extra missing piece.

I can be a woodsman if need be. I grew up very close to some forest, and I spent a lot of my formative years up and down trees, fooling around in the woods. I'm no stranger to that sort of landscape.

I like The Four Freshmen, anything with good harmonies, some Beach Boys. I like the girl groups as well, like The Dixie Cups and all that.

Love's not only blind but deaf.

'Hatful of Hollow' and 'The Smiths' were lent to me, and they made me want to create music that might make another person feel like they made me feel - to have an effect on someone.

It's a very unnatural environment to be in, up on a stage. So you put up defenses to hide. Like looking at the ground with your hair in your eyes, or being tightly wound and quite aggressive and uncooperative, as I used to do.

Television? It's a gateway to writer's block, isn't it?

Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'

I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.

The first time I went to New York, it was really exciting, and I thought, given half the chance, it would be nice to live there - the same with London.

I think New York is a good place to write in general because it's a grid. It's organized. You know where you are on the map. That centers you, and your imagination is perhaps freer to roam.

The idea that talent is directly proportional to your trophy cabinet is one I oppose.

Rock n' roll seems like it's faded away sometimes, but it will never die.