For me, the audience is the most important thing in the whole chain, so finding out how they respond to things is a learning curve at all times.

When bands are on stage and they ask the crowd, "Are you having a good time?" what they're really saying is, "I just want a bit of reassurance - is everything all right?"

I find it really disappointing and cheap when someone's copied the whole drum sound from a record.

I'll also listen to music on a Discman and realize how nice it can sound when it's not compressed to MP3 format.

If you can do something that doesn't rely on a major melody but still sounds immediate rather than being obtuse and devoid of anything to catch onto, that's great.

When you're making the record, you're not thinking about an audience, but you still need them and you want them.

That happens quite a lot in Hot Chip - you can let go of something that was originally essential to the creation of a song.

There is no decision to be more or less comic. I don't feel more or less humorous in my day-to-day. These things are accidental.

To stop for years and then discover that the audience is getting smaller and smaller would be demoralizing.

There's another thing that you don't want to take for granted, and that's the reality of there being an audience there each night. It's pretty amazing that that can happen around the world.

I don't love CDs more than anything else, but I was just playing around with the idea that they could be something you're momentarily keeping hold of as everything is passing by.

We have nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore- except to make our lives into a work of art.

We are tired of having our integrity impugned. We are tired of having our sincerity questioned. We are tired of having our intelligence insulted.

Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" was extremely important to me.

I try to think about my goals. I think about my competitors-I know they're working hard, and if they are, I have to work hard too. I have to be one step ahead of them.

The world is such a marvel - it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.

In Italy the Coach is a paratrooper who jumps out of the plane but doesn't know if the parachute will open or not.

Is there such a thing as a technically perfect swing? If there is, I have yet to see it.

I value peace, too, when it is not bought at the price of fundamental decencies.

Climbing trees is still one of my favorite things to do. A tree and a good book and I'm happy.

Everyone in advanced meditation practice should be involved with the economic support of the spread of the dharma. We live in a material world, and it's very expensive to teach meditation.