"The story of The Libertines starts for me when it was me, Carl Barât and Steve Bedlow sat on the side of a canal, throwing stones at a bottle and we had a game where whoever hit the bottle first with the stone got to choose the name of the band - I can't even remember who it was that hit the bottle but, yeah, from that night onwards we became The Libertines. We ended up throwing ourselves into eternity, as we called it at the time"

"Until I was nine years old I thought 'cunt' was a term of endearment"

"There are three things that I know a bit about in my life and that's QPR, my guitar and drugs. I know QPR are the best football team in the world, my guitar is the most beautiful thing I own and that I don't take enough drugs to kill me. It isnt drugs that I need to get rid of; it's the demons that fill my head. Once I have come to terms with my demons, maybe I'll be able to get clean."

"Something good has happened to us. We are, dare I say it, a professional unit these days. When people get us in a room together now, they actually treat us like musicians. Before, they would treat us as anything but: pigeon fanciers, candles, dry humpers..."

"I know the basic facts cause they’ve been repeated again and again across various duty desk counters at police stations over the past months and years: I’m 6ft 2in, green-brown eyes. Distinguishing features: moles. Tattoos: loads. Got a wolf, a mermaid, a heart with a K in it. They don’t go through your personality traits."

"I do have utopian fantasies. A lot of them are more - I wouldn't say spiritual, but they relate more to the imagination and the individual. But for me socialism is a way of trying to put far-fetched ideas into everyday use, trying to find a way to bridge the gap between that fantasy and reality, and reaching out across that gap to the people who can actually do something to make the change."

"The main instinct a lot of the time is to masquerade and hide the truth at all times. Whereas in reality what happens in songs is laying bare the truth. So a lot of time it's fighting that instinct, and the songs become almost confessional. They can also be quite condescending to myself, almost like I'm putting myself down."

"I don't really know what "intellectual" means, but if it means you've got a desire to learn, you've got a desire to look for things that haven't been presented to you, then, maybe. I think that "intellectual" is quite an exclusive word. I think it's just for anyone that has a thirst or a hunger to improve themselves, or a yearning to escape from somewhere to get to a better place."

""Each man kills the things he loves". I recognise that in myself, in relationships, even with guitars, beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed."

"Broken glass. It's just like glitter, isn't it?"

"I have a very bad relationship with the future. We don't get on. We just ignore each other."

"The more you read and the more you teach yourself, the less you rely on something like drugs to take you to a better place."

"You've got to understand... these days I just can't afford to get involved [with the press]. People - they turn on you... on me. They write horrible things, deliberately twisting my words."

"I can't buy her diamonds, my dick's too small. I never know where I stand with her. It's either a black eye or a love bite."

""We've had death threats", Pete says, "saying, 'You're evil and your days are numbered." What was it, "Don't panic but be scared". Someone shat on our doorstep once and nailed a sparrow to our basement door. I don't mind, me. I'll out-weird any stalker."

"I made this big statement saying, "I've left The Libertines." A couple of people said, "You can't do that! You're such a great band! What are you gonna do about Brixton?" And some people said, "Well, I'd rather be here than Brixton." There's no reason you can't do both. If I was 16 or 17 and Morrissey opened his front door to me and let me go and listen to him and chat to him it would be a joy. Why not? It's possible. I don't really have that much else going on in my life."

"We have played at venues up and down the country on this tour, some of which had no security, and have encountered no problems or witnessed any aggression. I simply asked the bouncer last night to apologise for his behaviour, three times in fact, and he refused. I was very upset at his attitude and although I'm very sorry for letting everyone down last night, I refuse to play at venues where pumped up, 16 stone men feel the need to be aggressively rude and to bully teenage kids around."

"I'm not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I'm not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions."

"Basically there’s a gulf between truth and untruth, I don’t want to be too mathematical about it, because I’m not very good at maths. But it’s a divide between, I dunno, a film and a cartoon. I’ve just become this cartoon character. I try not to follow it, but when you see pictures of yourself that have been photo-shopped to show you doing something you didn’t…. that’s wrong. It’s my worst nightmare – and being misquoted, too, especially as I’m so precious about words."

"‘You can only be so thick-skinned. You can only pretend not to care for so long before you have to admit that you hate being made to look like an idiot. I hate seeing myself misquoted. I hate being linked romantically with girls I’ve been close to for years but never slept with. It’s just upsetting, isn’t it? My nan reads and believes these things. I say, “Hiya Nan, how are you getting on?” and she’ll say, “Are you all right? What about that cat you injected with crack?”’"

"Nooooooah. No, that was a big joke in the family. When I was 16, 17, I started drifting away from everything else and picking up a guitar, and it was like, "What are you doing? You can't sing and you can't play a guitar", right up to the day we got signed by Rough Trade. And then it was like, "Go on play us a song", whereas before it was, "Shut up, fucking racket.""

"Old clothes do not make a tortured artist."

"I did loads of stupid things, like the way I used to argue with EMI Records. I just look back to the time now and wonder how I would have reacted to some prick coming into my office shouting and kicking things."

"I never did feel like a star. I was always uptight about something and uncomfortable and not very good. I felt weighed down by it, the pressure. It's terrible I should have enjoyed it but I didn't; I was thinking about what we should do all the time, I wasn't able to run with it."

"I had someone come up to me at "Top Of The Pops" and say they thought our records were excellent. "Yeah," I replied. "I think yours are fucking shit." It was awful really."

"I went to an art exhibition recently, and the guy had a quote of mine from that song there — "The only way to change things is to shoot men who arrange things." I wouldn't agree with shooting people at all. I was just anti-love. I feel differently now. But, you know. It's OK. That's how it was then, and it's good."

"The only way to change things is to shoot men who arrange things."

"Routines and schedules A drug that'll kill you"

"I'm such a tease and you're such a flirt"

"You've got some nerve, coming here"

"Open your mouth wide A universal sigh"

"You are my centre when I spin away."

"I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover."

"I'm an animal trapped in your hot car."

"You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking."

"Don't get any big ideas, They're not gonna happen."

"I have no idea what I am talking about I'm trapped in this body and can't get out"

"You used to be alright What happened?"

"How come I end up where I started? How come I end up where I went wrong?"

"Did I fall or was I pushed? Did I fall or was I pushed? And where's the blood?"

"I can't take their pressure No one cares if you live or die They just want me gone They want me gone"

"Don't walk the plank like I did You will be dispensed with When you've become Inconvenient"

"You cannot kickstart a dead horse"

"One little leak becomes a lake, Says the tiny voice in my earpiece"

"Time is running out for us But you just move the hands upon the clock You throw coins in the wishing well For us You just move your hands upon the wall"

"The more you try to erase me The more, the more The more that I appear"

"I keep the wolf from the door But he calls me up Calls me on the phone Tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up Steal all my children If I don't pay the ransom And I'll never see 'em again If I squeal to the cops"

"Murderers, you're murderers We are not the same as you"

"Are you hungry? Are you sick? Are you begging for a break? Are you sweet? Are you fresh? Are you strung up by the wrists?"

"And I'm sorry for us The dinosaurs roam the earth The sky turns green"