The same is true of ranking him thus against any work of literature. [Bob Dylan] has been made, through no fault of his own, the object of odious tokenism.

All doctrine is ultimately the death of joy - even when the doctrine is the elevation of the light above the serious, because joy is too varied and elusive ever to confine itself to one or the other.

Look, dear! How adorable. When pop music tries its very hardest, it can be almost as good as Sven Hassel.

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own; many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

Without music, there is not the faintest chance [Bob Dylan] words would now be garlanded as they are.

The general sentiment among the Yeas is, no accolade is too high for their man; and the Nobel being, literally, the gold standard among prizes, it is surely his [Bob Dylan] due.

They both looked at me in a way that was fast becoming familiar: two parts bafflement to one part awe at my talent for making a bad situation worse.

When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old before Europe was born.

I really believe in myself. I'm the hardest worker I know, and one of the best songwriters. There's a craft to it, and it takes a long time to hone it, and I work really hard at it.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

Water doesn't hurt a vinyl record. Put it into a dishwasher and you're fine.

I don't think of myself as giving interviews. I just have conversations. That gets me in trouble.

You can be a Polish American, or an Arab American, or a Greek American but you can't be English American. Why not?

I'm guilty of extraordinary naivete, I suppose. But it's a naivete that I really don't want to abandon, not even now.

If you have so many defects, why are you surprised to find defects in others?

I just have so much love for my record label.

I have played a lot of Test cricket with Paul Collingwood over the past year. I seem to be spending more time with him than my fiancee.