P. J. Bailey Quotes

This shed does not contain me.

I spent my childhood scrambling round badgers and foxes and playing fantastic country kid games like knocking on people's doors and running away. God that was a good game.

But our country's equivalent of gritty reality is more like "Look out Sarge, he's got a shooter!"

There we go, that's it. I just hold my hand in this position for the next couple of hours.

Contentment is knowing you're right

Talking of white supremacist violent types, I was in America, recently.

I'm not an academic; I'm just a bookish Joe who gets passionate about certain writers and suddenly wants to read everything they've ever written and find out why they wrote it.

I myself am consummately middle class. We grew up in upper-middle-class suburbs in Oklahoma City, and thats very much the same ethos as what Richard Yates and John Cheever wrote about.

I'm always fighting to make the team anyway. I'm always preparing like I'm one of the bottom guys, trying to make the team.

When I look back, I'm glad I grew up in a small town. There, it's just you, your family and whatever you make of it.

When you're a little kid, you want the ball. You don't want to play defense. When you get the ball, basically you can do whatever you want.

This is a business, and I'll deal with it when it comes. If it comes, it comes.

I think the [music] industry really suffered from music being available online because it made young people feel, "why should you pay for music, if it's so readily available for free?"

I never set out to be a photographer.

You adapt to who you're photographing.

I don't see the point of photographing trees or rocks because they're there and anyone can photograph them if they're prepared to hang around and wait for the light.

It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in.

All I could do at school was paint and draw and that was the only time I ever passed any exam. It was the only thing I ever got right at school.

My first influence obviously was Picasso.

My paintings are rubbish.

Journalists never make it clear when you are joking.

I was surrounded by strong women so it had never even occurred to me that women were anything other than equal to men.

In '73 I photographed the cannibals in New Guinea. They treated me OK but they didn't make you feel relaxed... I managed to escape unscathed though, I'm pretty good at that.

Rather than knowing more, I think I've got more open-minded.

I've always been a bit flip.

I was a terrible father. The most I ever did for my children was to teach them chess. At least they got that.

I am not responsible for all the journalists in the past that have told lies.

I don't think my work does reflect my nationality - I don't like the idea of nationalism.

I had a terrible time with feminists in the Seventies. They hated me, those women. I think they hated everything.

I'm never shocked, I'm not the shockable type!

Sometimes I still can't believe my luck.

The Sixties was a time of breaking down class barriers, although I think class still exists today in some areas.

I don't like any sport except boxing and bull fighting.

You have to kind of be invisible when you photograph children, so you use a longer lens.

The only thing approaching art in a movie is the script.

If you could only play a record once, imagine the intensity you’d have to bring into the listening.

I don't research anything.

I think playing solo is a second rate activity, really. For me, playing is about playing with other people.

Nowadays, I really like playing in studios.

Personally, I've found that the kind of thing that I like is going into somebody else's area and not playing their music but doing whatever I do in their area.

For me, Company is still the best way for me to work.

Charlie Appleyard can be anybody; but Ive used him sometimes in chat pieces, and these are all chat pieces about the history of Charlie Appleyard.

But that methodology where players are pitted against other unfamiliar players has been so widely adapted now that anybody plays with everybody.

I think the blues is fine for blues players, but free blues has never made much sense to me.

A team sport is not very good for me, because I can't take losing.

You find sprinters testing other sprinters' mental capability. But these are my good friends on the track. I don't think we need to do that.

I love music, and a lot of it. Jazz is probably on the top with guys like Miles Davis. But I even enjoy music from the '60s and '70s.

In running, I can internalize that intensity. I can handle it because it's me and I'm coming back in the next race. I'm always ready for the next race.

I'd like to be a more consistent starter. I'd like a smoother transition from crouching to running. I have to learn to relax during a race and how to breathe.