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" Playing music is a lifetime's work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you. "

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" I'd like to think I've left something in the world. Without in any way trying to be morbid, but life is very short, and I'd like to think I'd leave some body of work that would inspire other musicians long after I've gone. "

" I take my hat off to people like the Stones, but it's not for me. I couldn't do that. Jagger is brilliant and long may he rock. I couldn't make my career out of old songs; it would do my head in. "

" I still love playing music. It was all I ever wanted to do, and I got the chance to do it. "

" I'm always looking for something. Not in an unhappy way. I just like to try different things. I don't want to be morbid, but I'm not getting any younger. "

" I had a total belief in The Style Council. I meant every word and felt every action. "

" The first thing I bought that was really stylish was in 1969 when I was eleven. I saved up for a black, grey and white tie-dye grandad vest. It was too big - they weren't catering for kids my age - and hung off me, but I loved it. "

" I think, with age, you learn that it comes in bursts and you've got no control over it. I'm not one of those people who says, 'I've got to write a song every day.' I just store up ideas, and really I have to wait until it finds me; I know when I'm ready to write. It used to frustrate me, but it doesn't any more. It's just how it is. "

" I am aware of the words 'national treasure' being attached to me occasionally. It just makes me feel old. "

" I don't like the royal family, I don't like the establishment, I don't like the civil service. "

" You have to keep challenging yourself. I've always tried to do that, and I'm not saying I've always been successful. Maybe I've rewritten the same song; it's inevitable, but I've always been mindful of taking the writing somewhere else. You can't stick in your little comfort zone. "

" When I told my mum I was going to play my first gig when I was 14, she couldn't believe it, cause I was painfully shy at that time. But I just done it, put my head down and got through it. And I suppose there's still a little bit of that, even though it's many years later and I've been doing it for a long time. "

" Right from the start with music, I was like, 'I'm just going to do this, and I don't care about anything else. There are certain things you have to give up, even at 13, 14: your Friday and Saturday nights, having a regular girl, lots of things like that. I look at Amy Winehouse, and I think perhaps she just don't want to do it that much. "

" It's quite liberating to get to a certain age, 'cos you're not chasing number one hits or trying to be an international superstar. I've done all that. I'm not out to prove much more to anyone but myself really, to be an artist and see if there is a new undiscovered music out there for me to make. "

" When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I'd write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I'd sit there writing songs with my guitar. "

" Playing live is what it's all about for me. It's cathartic, it's emotional, it's about communing with people. The way you feel after a gig is a such a powerful thing. "

" The Jam were a good band, however I feel that the Style Council were better. A lot of people I know will disagree with me. Some things we did with The Style Council were misinterpreted or over their heads. "

" Nothing wrong with pop! "

" I don't think about what I can't do or what I shouldn't be doing. I just think there are endless possibilities musically, really. And I'm very, very open to experimenting with different people and trying to find different methods of writing and making music. "

" We can't stop a baby in Africa from starving to death... but we can afford enough technology and weaponry to blow the world up a million times over. "

" When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do. "

" I hear an album so many times during the course of making it that when I've just finished it, I don't want to hear it again. After you've taken a little bit of time away from it, you can come back to it, which can be scary. I'm happy with 'Sonik Kicks,' man. "

" I'm so lucky, I'm just really grateful for what I've got around me - children and my wife and everything else. "

" I want to see where and how far I can go as an artist. I look back and see what I've done, and I want to do as much as I can in my lifetime. I love doing it. If I didn't have that passion or love for it, I wouldn't do it. "

" There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. "

" I'm sure there's a subconscious 'go for it' thing with turning 50. You want to do as much as possible and there are thoughts of how little time we have on the planet. For a lot of musicians in their 50s, the best days are behind them. I'd like to try and show that there is a future. "

" Pop music was supposed to be a flash in the pan, but here we are 50 years later and it means something to us, and it always will do. It's incredibly important. "

" I didn't imagine getting to 50, let alone still be playing music. When I was 18, I thought it'd all be over by the time I was 21. "

" I kept the first Rickenbacker I ever got, a little short-scale John Lennon-type model. And I've got a couple of 12-string models, which are really nice, and I've got a Pete Townshend model, which Pete gave me a few years ago. But that's about it. "

" When I was a kid in Woking, every week you went to the football dance, and every week the top kids would be wearing something different. You were constantly trying to catch up with them - which you could never do because, by the time you'd saved up enough to buy the item, they'd moved on to something else. That's the whole Mod thing, I suppose. "

" I've always had self-belief, though my sensitive side has never been fully appreciated. For every 'Down in the Tube Station at Midnight,' I've written an 'English Rose.' People forget. "