"Childhood living is easy to do The things you wanted, I bought them for you Graceless lady, you know who I am You know I can't let you slide through my hands Wild horses couldn't drag me away Wild, wild horses, couldn't drag me away."

"Let's drink to the hard working people Let's drink to the salt of the earth ...Raise your glass to the hard working people ...Who need leaders but get gamblers instead"

"I see a red door and I want it painted black No colors anymore, I want them to turn black I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes I have to turn my head until my darkness goes I see a line of cars and they're all painted black With flowers and my love, both never to come back I see people turn their heads and quickly look away Like a new born baby, it just happens every day I look inside myself and see my heart is black I see my red door, I must have it painted black Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts It's not easy facing up, when your whole world is black"

"I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the expat bankers and their girlfriends that are going to be coming."

"We have not had any disagreements about clothes, smoking or L'Wren, and this is all very hurtful for her... It is completely untrue to say that L'Wren has caused a rift between myself and the rest of the band. This is all nonsense, everyone has their own style."

"There's not many Americans, certainly not many of the teenagers I met when I first went to America, knew anything about [blues musicians] at all. … They do now, which is very groovy."

"When you get so down that you can't get up, and you want so much but you're all out of luck When you're so downhearted and misunderstood, just over and over and over, you could..."

"As I gaze around at these strangers in town, I guess the only stranger is me. As I see what they've done to this place that was home, shame is all that I feel."

"The love, the echoes of long ago you needed the world to know They are in Xanadu The dream that came through a million years That lived on through all the tears, it came to Xanadu"

"A place where nobody dared to go the love that we came to know They call it Xanadu And now, open your eyes and see what we have made is real We are in Xanadu A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star An everlasting world and you're here with me, eternally Xanadu"

"Underneath a starry sky Time was still but hours must really have rushed by I didn't realize But love was in your eyes I really should have gone But love went on and on"

"It was one of those nights One of those nights When you feel the world stop turning You were standing there There was music in the air I should have been away But I knew I had to stay"

"My Shangri-la has gone away, Faded like the Beatles on Hey Jude She seemed to drift out on the rain That came in somewhere softly from the blue."

"It's a livin' thing. It's a terrible thing to lose. It's a given thing. What a terrible thing to lose."

"Midnight on the water I saw the ocean's daughter Walking on a wave's chicane Staring as she called my name And I can't get it out of my head No, I can't get it out of my head Now my old world is gone for dead 'Cos I can't get it out of my head"

"At the end of the day I have to please myself. And I've made a record to please myself."

"I like the natural sound of a room. All the rooms have their own sound, so it's a matter of putting it where you like and seeing what it sounds like."

"Riding on anything Anything’s good enough Who would’ve thought it of someone like you"

"I just thought it was better to be Pete Best than Linda McCartney"

"Is there something you lack When I'm flat on my back Is there something that I can do for you?"

"Let's go siesta In your Ford Fiesta"

"In a musical sense, it seemed like all the good intentions had gone awry, very quickly. I mean, we got back from America and Blur had made The Great Escape, which I thought was a really, truly awful album - so cheesy, like a parody of Parklife, but without the balls or the intellect. And Oasis were enormous and I always found them incredibly dreary. There was this uncritical reverence surrounding the whole thing"

"The Auteurs have become Luke Haines. I ate their bodies, spat out the pips, and sucked up their souls."

"The Great British Public; a nation of Blue Peter presenters."

"I saw the 'Popstars' programme and to me it looked more like 'Opportunity Knocks' than the kind of cutting-edge postmoderism that The Guardian would like to have us believe it was. I think what it's more about is the public and the music industry's bloodlust. It's just like someone itching to say 'Oh, confound it all, let's bring back hanging, that was good entertainment'."

"The point is there's a boring homogenisation of popular culture, so really the problem is there's nothing wrong, the machine works too smoothly. I think the pop music machine is much more fun when it's broken. Things are always more fun when they're broken. No one was ever consulted about this. There was never a Senate committee to say we must produce pop music every day since 1953 or whatever. It's time to lay down the gauntlet."

"All British artists 1988--? Just signing your name is not enough, you withered fucking idiots."

"When you are knocked down you have two choices - stay down or get back up, stronger."

"By the way, dancers are not human beings. How can you be human and do what they do?"

"You have this great laugh. It's this crazy, mad laugh."

"I don't need to give Alesha any advice. Honestly, she's a really strong woman."

"Strictly has just given me a real zest for life. Life is so short. We should all grasp it."

"Dancing is an important function of music, but so is crying."

"We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe; that's a good estimate with well-defined error bars and with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you."

"We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That's a guess — no-one can ever say it's true, but I know that I will always be with you."

"Because the line between, Wrong and right, Is the width of a thread, From a spider's web. The piano keys are black and white, But they sound like a million colours in your mind."

"I've got a ticket, To the fast city, Where the bells don't really ring, Getting off the plane the cold air, Rushes like bullets through my brain, And I'm divided between penguins and cats, But it's not about what animal you've got, It's about being able to fly, It's about dying nine times."

"[Melua] makes music that's easy on the ear and even easier on the brain. She's the perfect good girl in the middle of the road. I'm not keen to make things too easy for anyone."

"The only trouble is that there's absolutely no passion, no soul and no excitement to be found here...Yet all good music should provoke some sort of emotion, and this [Nine Million Bicycles] provokes none whatsoever."

"I'm a songwriter but she [Melua] has her songs written for her... She must think it's her fucking lucky day... It's not like she's singing old songs like Jamie [Cullum], she's singing shit new songs that her manager writes for her."

"She enjoys extremes, but in life her emotions are always in check."

"She is one of the most intelligent singers I've worked with for a very long time, - there are little reminders in her voice, of all sorts of other singers like Eartha Kitt and Edith Piaf, - of whom she has never heard. She exudes a modest confidence, she is completely sure of herself and has a maturity far in advance of her age."

"I just think war is fucked up"

"Earth is my home!"

"Wanking housewives"

"I've never had paparazzi follow me and I rarely get recognised. I dress like a tramp when I'm not working. My hairdresser calls me the Romanian window cleaner. That's just the way I am."

"Don't come into the music industry. It's almost inevitable that you'll psychologically be quite screwed up. Fame isn't a natural, human, behavioural thing. You get alienated. You're not really surrounded by truth."

"The last verse [In My Secret Life] completely got to me, about how we all have great ideals but in reality we end up conforming, following everyone else. We want to be stronger so we lead that life inside, thinking of ourselves as these great brave souls. I literally thought when I was 15 that I was a musical genius and I could change the world, but in fact you're not and you can't and you don't, and that realisation is almost heartbreaking."

"...after all we don't want the radio star to kill video."

"Some people think it's got a double meaning, but as my mum's in the audience tonight, it doesn't."