"Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no difference."

"My generation had the best years. We missed the Second World War and caught the outburst of rock 'n' roll."

"We were at Pye Studios for half an hour so we set the gear up and we did two tracks. A month later we found out it was selling thirty thousand copies a day."

"If you had a good radio - and everybody did in those days - you could find it."

"Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion."

"My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff, but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians."

"In opera, as with any performing art, to be in great demand and to command high fees you must be good of course, but you must also be famous. The two are different things."

"It all has to do with art - writing, painting, things I've done for a long time but just never had enough time to pursue. I have poetry - things that are designed for songs, but they're always poems first."