I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 – in certain parts of the world anyway.

I was brought up with psychics and tarot cards. My mum was always told I was going to be in a boy band and be famous as a singer.

My sons are into German music, but they are into all kinds of music.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I’ve always rebelled against theory.

We’ve always decided ourselves what we wanted to put out as our singles and that sort of things.

I suppose that the media and their portrayal of Islam and the almost tribal separations and divisions of the Muslims are the greatest issues confronting Muslims in the United Kingdom.

I’m always shy in front of an audience, so I’m always at the back, in the shadows, just doing it. I don’t like the front, the adulation.

Although they can do it all the time, you know, they’re far better than me, on a musically, on a theoretical music level. You know, they’re out of my league.

Nothing is a career move. Everything I’ve done this year has so not been a career move.

With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people’s self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.

I’d go out with Duncan if I was a girl.

What we’re doing is a retrospective, a refined look at how far we’ve come in what’s known as progressive music and investigate and explore that.

I don’t want to be nasty but let’s just say Robbie Williams is no Freddie Mercury.

You feel quite distant by playing at huge stadiums year after year, where you only can see a great darkness in front of you.

The latest horror to hit the U.S. looks to have been caused by people of Middle Eastern origin, bearing Muslim names. Again, shame. This fuels more hatred for a religion and a people who have...

I had a wonderful time with the Stones but after 31 years, I thought it was time to move on.

One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you...

When you decide to do this kind of music then you just accept the facts.

In some ways it’s taken me decades to come clean and make honest work – and still to this day, sometimes I find myself wanting to hide behind my work and deny the more biographical...

I’m not a rich man, and Greg Lake is certainly not. I don’t know how he can survive. I don’t know how he can be that suicidal. But having said that, I’d love to be...

I finally got a job teaching English in a college, which I was delighted to have because it proved to be a real steadying influence.

Live Aid turned our world upside down.

I’m not a flowerchild or anything like that… whatever it was.

In the early days I had a very black-and-white view of everything.

Then trust me there’s nothing like drinking, So pleasant on this side of the grave: It keeps the unhappy from thinking, And makes e’en the valiant more brave.

I have no restrictions, no limits, no musical history to live with.

Well it has been very exciting and very changing as well. Celebrating the 40th year and having the album out and the Channel 4 documentary and I resigned from Blind Date.

I spent years growing up being told what my sexuality was.

To be honest everything goes over my head a bit.

Next year I’m going to be a guesting soloist with orchestras all over Europe, to start off with.

While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn’t have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.

When we finished the album, the Night at the Opera album, that was the track on it that we thought we were gonna release as a single in England first.

In a World where people are surrounded by darkness, ignorance and fear, it is a sign of hope to be celebrating Islam’s message of peace and light, and the last great Messenger, born and chosen...

I open events for museums and I do charity work and photography.

I don’t have half the nerves there that I have anywhere else.

I humbly apologise for reality Television.

Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups.

I was always playing the Hammond Organ back to front even during the days of the Nice, going back to 1968. Really what I was doing there, was choosing notes at random and trying to...

You’ve got to keep things flying.

I have a few personal ambitions for the band.

People say that I’m a millionaire, but that’s not true – I only spend millions.

I am confident that, in the end, common sense and justice will prevail. I’m an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see...

I always got great respect as a bass player.

The first one was quite cheap, but that was expensive for us. For my folks to buy on the Never Never. It was quite, you know, a rare object to have and I gained quite...

I have a condition called Aspergers Syndrome, which is like a mild form of autism It means I don’t interact properly in certain social situations.

In the early days I really enjoyed the freedoms it offered because I was happy to work the long hours as long as I was working from home a lot.

I’m probably too forgiving sometimes. You have to understand that when you have a commitment to do a tour, you have to keep everything on an up level.

I just want to be able to play and make people feel good with what I do. When you’re thinking that way, anything can happen. And, usually, what happens is good.

Lot’s of marriages don’t last as long as Queen have been together.

I love to sing old Motown songs to myself,or some Patti Smith Edith Piaf or Billie Holiday. That gets me in the mood for singing.