Morrissey

“I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old.”

“Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.”

“I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.”

“I want fame now, not after I'm dead.”

“Burn down the discoHang the blessed D.J.Because the music that they constantly playIt says nothing to me about my life”

“I am hated for loving.I am haunted for wanting.”

“Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.”

“Often I feel I say too much.”

“I'd love to...but only with you.”

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

“I still prefer horses to human beings.”

“I'm fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they've lived for so long.”

“I've only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.”

“Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.”

“We're all lonely, but I'd rather be lonely by myself than with a long list of duties and obligations. I think that's why people kill themselves, really.”

“My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.”

“If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.”

“Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.”

“Last night I dreamt that somebody loved me.No hope, no harm; just another false alarm”

“I think we were all initially swept along with the Obama win, but he's proven to be simply a set of teeth, and useless in every other regard.”