Without the piano my life would be a disaster - nobody would hold me in any regard. It's the thing that saved me.

I learned from Van Morrison and BB King that the first take is the best. It's about capturing a moment. It's the same as love's first kiss. If you try to do it again, it doesn't work so well.

As a bandleader, I try to pass on the same family values that I grew up with: help people, hang on to your sense of humour, be tolerant and keep your judgments to yourself.

It would be great to have Bach in one corner, Bessie Smith in another, John Lennon in another. That's what I'd ideally like. A studio of the dead.

'The Tube' was the first time the plebs had gone on the television. The lunatics taking over the asylum.

Due to my work, I tend to stay in hotels a lot of the time, and I generally prefer smaller hotels, as you tend to get better service than in the larger hotels.

Amy Winehouse and Paul Weller are examples of poets, I think.

A good example of the modern world is the Eurotunnel. And mobile phones - I like them.

I do so much travelling in my work that my suitcase is always packed, with my passport ready. I rarely unpack, as I am constantly on the move.

Naggers always know what they are doing. They weigh up the risks, then they go on and on and on until they get what they want or until they get punched.

You say ‘cure.’ I hear ‘you’re not human enough.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Humility feels that there is someone, somewhere who can do anything I can do better - except one thing: no one can be better at being me.

A sufficiently great and generous trust could never be abused.

I think 'growing up' would mean that you are incredibly tolerant and easygoing, liked everything, curious about the world because you weren't so egotistically driven.

Don't judge it. Just write it. Don't judge it. It's not for you to judge it.

It is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice.

Commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred.

Obviously, from the experience you get from making videos, you understand where the camera is and how some of the actual technicalities work and so on and so forth.

They can sonically sound like me, but nobody's ever gonna be able to write songs like T-Pain. There's only one of those.