One minute I'm standing at Ronnie Scott's getting a standing ovation and the next minute, I'm on a marble slab

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.

Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

If you've gotta think about being cool, you ain't cool.

True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you ; you just grow into each other

Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.

You don't find a style. A style finds you

It is a very natural human trait to destroy that which frightens us.

You will not be a success in every business, but if you don’t start a business you will never be a success.

In writing, there is art. And in art there is craft ...

The only 'ironclad rules' in writing fiction are the laws of physics and the principles of grammar, and even those can be bent.

A rich, robust, well-resourced public education is one of the best routes out of poverty and a pathway to prosperity.

From my point of view, I always want to fight until the end of my last chance.

If consensus is overrated, I think balance is, too. I have no interest in living a balanced life. I want a life of adventure.

If you are resentful, you keep the thing alive. So the way to go on is to get rid of it, in order to forgive in order to forget.

Be careful with drinking this Christmas. I got so drunk last night I found myself dancing in a cheesy bar... Or, as you like to call it, delicatessen.

I do not fear it: I have been there.