Quotes

I'm not a very good star. I'm small. And I'm bald.

[on Eminem referencing him in one of his songs] At the time I was really flattered that the most successful artist in the world took the time out to mention me. During his gigs he has a guy dressed up as me come out so he can shoot me dead with a shotgun. It doesn't bother me, I like to think of it as my entry to the pre-school market.

I'm not a particularly attractive person - 5ft 8in, stooping, with a receding hairline.

It's strange because I really never expected to have a record contract. I thought I'd spend the rest of my life making music in my bedroom that nobody would ever hear. When I released my first record back in the early 90s, I thought I'd be lucky to have a career that lasted a year or two, so the fact that I've been making records for nearly 20 years really baffles me.

It's really bizarre being hated by so many people I've never met. It mystifies my friends more than it mystifies me, because I'm a relatively inoffensive person: I'm not very tall, I'm not very big, I'm not very bright. I don't know how I manage to annoy people so much. Maybe it's because I've been outspoken on certain issues? I do sometimes think I should go to school to become a shy, retiring, esoteric musician - the Kate Bush and Thom Yorke school of how to be a rock star.

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with New Order and Joy Division and a lot of that Cold Wave from around 1979 to 1983. I still love that aesthetic, that hybrid of electronics with rock elements ... dance music that has a pained, emotional quality.

[on the killing of Osama bin Laden and people celebrating it] Osama bin Laden was, as far as we can tell, a very bad man, and he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. I still think it's weird when people celebrate death, you know, so the fact that like politicians and pundits in the States were all celebrating the death of this man, like you can, you can be glad that he's not around to kill anyone, but the idea of celebrating death always sits strangely with me. (May 2011)

Without David Bowie, popular music as we know it pretty much wouldn't exist.

I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.

[on the election of Donald Trump] I am so confused as to the fact that such a high percentage of Americans are either really stupid or incredibly bigoted.