"I want to be safe in the knowledge that I can tour and play festivals for a long time. The main thing is that I want a good reputation as a live performer. If I have that, I'd be so happy."

"I never expected to get the Tom Jones treatment and it amazes me that I do. Strangely it's women who throw their underwear at me when I'm performing live. My male fans tend to be quite shy. My female fans are wild. I never know what to do with all the lingerie that lands at my feet. Maybe I should open a shop."

"People always try to find my agenda, but I don't really have one. It's safe to say that I make pop, but I think that I'm doing important music, too. I've just always done what I wanted to do."

"I was the first person to go to university from my family."

"When I have the time at home, I'll practice three or four hours a day. I have to. And I'm a late starter I started at age 17 and at age 51 I'm still learning."

"My problem is that I like technology, but I always have to ask myself, 'Now wait a minute, will I actually have any use for this?'"

"In the spring of 1994 I decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. I had made the decision 12 years earlier, Christmas Day of 1982, just after I had been first elected to a full term, that I would do the best I could for a limited time."

"After these three novels I gave up writing novels for a time I was dissatisfied with romantic doom, yet didn't see much way around it."