"I once bought a Manchester United hat, which I think was 12 shillings, and somebody ran up behind me and pulled it off and just ran ahead. I thought, 'It's a very cruel world, I'm not prepared for this'. And I decided to get my revenge on society."

"I think I'm a realist. Which people who don't like me consider to be pessimism. It isn't pessimism at all. If I was a pessimist I wouldn't get up, I wouldn't shave, I wouldn't watch Batman at 7:30 a.m. Pessimists just don't do that sort of thing."

"PM: What annoys you most about yourself? M: Practically everything. I miss not being able to stand up straight. I tend to slide into rooms and sit on the chair behind the door."

"M: If you cannot impress people simply by being part of the great fat human race, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you don't impress people by the way you look, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you are now going to ask is everything I did just a way to gain some form of attention, well that's not entirely true. It is in a small way, but that's in the very nature of being alive. PM: Wanting to be loved? M: To be seen, above all else. I wanted to be noticed, and the way I lived and do live has a desperate neurosis about it because of that. All humans need a degree of attention. Some people get it at the right time, when they are 13 or 14, people get loved at the right stages. If this doesn't happen, if the love isn't there, you can quite easily just fade away. … In a sense I always felt that being troubled as a teenager was par for the course. I wasn't sure that I was dramatically unique. I knew other people who were at the time desperate and suicidal. They despised life and detested all other living people. In a way that made me feel a little bit secure. Because I thought, well, maybe I'm not so intense after all. Of course, I was. I despised practically everything about human life, which does limit one's weekend activities"

"I know I've reached the stage where other artists would bleach their hair or buy a fancy costume, but, inexcusably, I can only be me, which is a full-time occupation and causes terrible backaches."

"DK: How often does the seriousness end and the irony begin in your work? M: Many times. I have a grand and endless capacity to find myself slightly ridiculous. I'm not pretending to be some wallowing prophet, for heaven's sake. I think we all have to sit down and look in the mirror and think, What is that absurd monstrosity?"

"I was quite advanced when I was at school, and when I left school it seemed that all these really oafish clods from school were making tremendous progress and had wonderfully large cars and lots of money, and I seemed to be constantly waiting for a bus that never came."

"I never enjoyed life in my twenties, not one minute of it. It was a test of endurance that I'm surprised I survived. Professionally, of course, I was doing very well but personally it couldn't have been worse or more difficult for me if I'd been living in a mud hut in Leeds."

"Lots of people make the stage and it can seem very violent and over the top, but it's not really. It's always a kind of gentle ballet."

"JU: Are you thin still? M: Um, in a crowd, yes. In a crowd of very heavy people."

"I left my fingerprints somewhere - that's good enough. I am my own person - that's good enough. I stand my ground - that's good enough."

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

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

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

"Well, I think when I was a child, more than anything else I wanted not to be ordinary. And I wanted to be considered to be a bit peculiar. When I was at school I wanted to be peculiar and I was delighted when I was at secondary school and I was actually thought to be peculiar (laughs). It was fantastically good for me because I looked around me and I thought, 'Well, however you are I don't want to be like you, so if you think I'm unbalanced then I'm delighted.' That really stayed with me."

"I don't perform. Seals perform."

"In my life Why do I smile At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye ?"

"I say a lot of things I don’t mean."

"I shake like a ship in a storm. It is a fact that even warming moments overwhelm me with despair, and this is why I am I."

"Nobody can possibly be so hungry that they need to take a life in order to feel satisfied – they don't after all, take a human life, so why take the life of an animal? Both are conscious beings with the same determination to survive. It is habit, and laziness and nothing else."

"The brain speculates but the heart knows."

"The British judiciary continues to label animal protectionists as 'extremists', whilst being unable to consider the Holocaust carnage inside every abattoir to be extreme."

"You either approve of violence or you don't, and nothing on earth is more violent or extreme than the meat industry."

"It was probably nothing, but it felt like the world."

"Last night I dreamt That somebody loved me No hope, no harm Just another false alarm Last night I felt Real arms around me No hope, no harm Just another false alarm So, tell me how long Before the last one? And tell me how long Before the right one? The story is old - I know But it goes on The story is old - I know But it goes on Oh, goes on And on Oh, goes on And on"

"And you even spoke to me, and said : "If you're so funny Then why are you on your own tonight ? And if you're so clever Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very entertaining Then why are you on your own tonight ? If you're so very good-looking Why do you sleep alone tonight ? I know... 'Cause tonight is just like any other night That's why you're on your own tonight With your triumphs and your charms While they're in each other's arms...""

"And you're standing on our streets where Hector was the first of the gang with a gun in his hand and the first to do time The first of the gang to die / oh my"

"So I broke into the palace, with a sponge and a rusty spanner She said "eh, I know you and you cannot sing" I said "that's nothing you should hear me play piano""

"There is no such thing in life as normal"

"As Anthony said to Cleopatra as he opened a crate of ale: "Oh, I say, some girls are bigger than others, Some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers."

"And now I know how Joan of Arc felt Now I know how Joan of Arc felt As the flames rose to her And her started to melt"

"Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body? I dunno..."

"And when I'm lying in my bed, I think about life and I think about death. And neither one particularly appeals to me."

"But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled making Christmas cards with the mentally ill. I want to live and I want to love. I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of."

"Most people keep their brains between their legs"

"I'm here with the cause, I'm holding the torch In the corner of your room- can you hear me? And when you're dancing and laughing, and finally living, Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly."

"Oh, the alcoholic afternoons when we sat in your room they meant more to me than any, than any living thing on earth"

"There's more to life than books you know, but not much more"

"Hand in glove, the good people laugh, yes we may be hidden by rags, But we've something they'll never have"

"There's a club if you'd like to go, you could meet somebody who really loves you, so you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die"

"You shut your mouth, How can you say I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does"

"I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving, England is mine and it owes me a living"

"Why pamper life's complexity when the leather runs smooth on the passenger's seat?"

"I've been dreaming of a time when The English are sick to death of Labour and Tories And spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him And will salute him forever."

"So when you say it's gonna happen now. Well when exactly do you mean? See I've already waited too long. And all my hope is gone!"

"And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die. And if a ten ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side, the pleasure, the privilege is mine."

"It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind."

"I may be soft in your palm, But I'll soon grow hungry for a fight, and I will not let you win. My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will disprove your faith in man. So if you catch me trying to find my way into your heart from under your skin,Fast as you can, baby Scratch me out, free yourself."

"And then I went over to the concession stand to get some tea and I ran into Fiona Apple, and I was like, "Who do you think you are, Fiona Snapple?""

"Well, you ain't Fiona Apple. And if you ain't Fiona Apple, I don't give a rat's ass."