Looking back on his jazz gigs:
"It was really an exercise in how much beer you could drink."

On music:
"I think music does heal people. It heals me. . . . I'm not angry any more."
-- New Musical Express, April 1991.

On reading:
"Exposure to literature is oneof the mainstays of my life. I read all the time. It gives me fresh ideas, fresh inspiration, allows me to rethink a lot of stuff, so if I can point anybody else in the right direction, it gives me a really good, positive feeling."
-- New Musical Express, February 20, 1988.

On political overtones of his music:
"I'm not in the political arena, I'm making personal statements."

On rainforest:
"I know a lot of people are campaigning about the effects of the burning of the rainforests on the environment. I am doing it this way round becuase to save the Indian culture is to save the rainforest. You can't separate the two."

On Bob Dylan:
"I was turned on by his poetry, image after image flowing on . . ."

On becoming photogenic:
"I decided that I could impose beauty on myself . . . It's a strange thing to talk about. But there is an expression I have. Seductive."

On wakes and funerals:
"Morbid are those who prefer a funeral to a wake and here was a wake to end all wakes. Joy and saddness in equal parts."

On governments:
"For the first time we have been able to have an effect on the torture or wrongful imprisonment of people just by making records. All you do is embarrass governments, it's a wonderful way of achieving things."

On poverty:
"I've been poor and I never want to be poor again."

On fame:
"One of the penalties of being famous is that you're not allowed to observe anybody, whereas you yourself are constantly being observed. You have to put up a barrier just to exist."

On Sting:
"It's Sting who's the superstar, he has all the fans, not me."