Traditionally, lots of vagrants and unemployable characters wind up working in kitchens.

The best songwriting comes from being as creative as you can and editing it down to the good bits, essentially.

People's musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.

There's a difference between expectations and aspirations.

I want to make music that will make the blood surge in your veins, music that will get people up and dance.

Glasgow's not a media center. When you're there, when you're hanging about, you feel quite detached from musical movements or fashions or anything like that. You do feel quite alone, in a good way.

I'd rather eat a cow-pat on a bun than a bloody McDonalds.

It doesn't matter how adventurous you want to be, you've still got to contain your identity.

Being in a band didn't buy me my beans on toast!

Men behave very oddly in the company of attractive women.

Arty. To me the word's got as much venom associated with it as 'wacky'.

Americans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth.

Nothing good has ever been written about the full rotation of a racecar about its roll axis.

If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point.

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. I think it's a good rule for politics, too.

All experience is memory, and so everything you write about is from memory-unless you're writing about typing.

I think certainly everybody is aware of the potential for just the very inflamed political mood in America .

The most universal quality is diversity.

Why did I become a writer? A bird's feather on my windowpane in winter and all at once there arose in my heart a battle of embers never to subside again.

As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.

Culture is like the current of the ocean. Where has it taken your marriage?