Quotes About Expression

I've managed to persuade Yoko Ono to put some of her work in my Penguin book!

It is a lot harder to write a good book or a good column in a persuasive way without making fun of someone or ridiculing them.

That's the thing about fiction writers: what seems alarming or particular or perverse about them is simply the shape of their brain - they cannot be otherwise.

When a country is strong... it accepts any dose of pessimism from its writers.

Perhaps it is because cats do not live by human patterns, do not fit themselves into prescribed behavior, that they are so united to creative people.

I always pet a dog with my left hand because if he bit me I'd still have my right hand to paint with.

One of our biggest pet peeves is listening to bands that use harmony guitars for the sake of it. If you can't figure out how do something different than Maiden, UFO, or even Boston, then what's the point?

That's one of my pet peeves. People always want to put something into a category - this one or that one. You know, a great song is a great song.

If the Beastie Boys and the Beach Boys and Pet Shop Boys can stay boys, so can we.

I've never written a 'Revolver' or a 'Pet Sounds.'

My basic influence had probably been Peter Max.

I like Peter Tosh, Bob Marley of course. All of Capleton, Sizzla, Frisco Kid, Buju Banton.

Peter has the biggest mouth, so it goes to be a mouth contest.

When I met Peter Weir, we did a movie called 'Master and Commander' together, and that's when I really started to understand the power of acting, the power of directing, finding the emotion in performance.

Oh yeah, I love Peter Gabriel's stuff. I mean, I even have the Genesis records. He's incredible.

Obviously I don't play the same way as Peter, but I could do a passable imitation of Peter Green; if you gave me a guitar I could sit here and probably get closer than anybody else.

I no longer enjoy drawing people's pets. I just want to draw what I want to draw and have people not tell me what to draw.

My sexuality is not a phase. I am who I am.

I had this little Bon Iver phase a few years back; 'Flume' was one of my favourite songs.

Fantastic Negrito is a persona, an incarnation in my third phase.

A lot of the songs that I wrote during 'Pt. 1' and 'Pt. 2' are the first songs that I ever wrote that sounded like that. I was in this phase - a certain creative space in my life - personally and musically.

I don't dismiss the music that I was involved with, I don't think it was a joke, I don't think it was funny or a phase, I don't think it was just something I was doing back then, to me it was who I am. It connects all the way through. I don't distance myself from any of it.

I had a gothic phase, and now I'm more edgy chic.

For me, my awkward phase corresponded to an interest in rock n' roll. From experience, I'm guessing an insecure childhood is probably quite a common thing among people who start a rock band.