John Cooper Clarke

“My declining allure is a source of great sadness to me.”

“The very pointlessness of a sea walk is it's attractiveness to me.”

“I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.”

“I went to what can only be described as a slum school in Salford - rough and full of trainee punks - but I was very lucky in that I had one inspiring teacher, John Malone, who gave the whole class an interest in romantic poetry.”

“Where I grew up, the one unmistakable sign of homosexuality was to betray some interest in your appearance.”

“Doris Day was the perfect woman.”

“Well, I've obviously been a great source of inspiration to the academic population of Salford! They're citing me as a major contribution to their upward trajectory!”

“If you don't like The Ramones, you don't like rock 'n'roll. They're like The Beach Boys without the sea.”

“I'm not one of nature's campers. I'm not even a glamper.”

“I crack myself up. Even I don't know what I'm going to say next.”

“I never saw a painting that would not be improved by the addition of tropical fish.”

“I was too old to be a punk rocker. I was a mod, that's really the only youth tribe I ever belonged to - and even then, not for very long.”

“I'm a great believer in the capsule wardrobe - a wardrobe where's there's a limited palate of black colours.”

“I had a million jobs before I managed to make a living out of poetry.”

“There are only three things that stop me sleeping: hunger, the odd bad dream and cramp in the arches of my feet - it's crippling, as if somebody's trying to tie your foot in a reef knot.”

“I'm not much of a team player when it comes to making records, I've got to say.”

“I hate chickpeas. I like hummus but I ate that before I realised it was made out of chickpeas.”

“When you write poetry you are always addressing the world somehow.”

“To make the hips the focal point of a pair of trousers is, to me, a fashion mistake.”

“To approach a poem as if it is a puzzle to be understood is to miss the point.”