Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We used to spend a lot of time as kids in Northern Ireland, on the border and in southern Ireland as well.
There's nothing better than curling up with a good book and sitting in front of the fire on winter evenings.
I particularly love the silk in Jakarta, the shoes in Tokyo and the amazing cloth from Thailand and Malaysia.
Because I don't go to showbiz parties, I don't have the right image. The media decides who's in and who's out.
So many people moan about touring and say it's a chore. I don't know, they must be living on a different planet.
You don't necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.
I've always loved what I do and I've always done what I wanted to do... in this business you have got to be yourself.
I'm not this cuddly, jumper-wearing, good-guy. I'm not David Cassidy. I'm more Johnny Rotten. I'm more Donny Tourette.
I would love the record industry to be more receptive to my music but all they are interested in is style over content.
It's been hard to gain acceptance in England without the clown makeup because I wore the costume as part of my act for so long.
In the '70s, Leo-mania was the equivalent of Beatle-mania down there and they still love me. In Australia they still want heroes.
I grew up on the south coast in Shoreham-by-Sea in a three-bedroom semi-detached home with a large garden shared by two properties.
When you've sung the same song a million or a hundred thousand times, there are always moments when you drift off and go into automatic.
Kids in England will stop you on the streets and tell you bluntly they don't care for your current record. But it keeps you down to earth.
It happens in this business - The Rolling Stones were ripped off, so were the Beatles. George Harrison hardly had anything left in the end.
Fame is always a bit crazy. You spend so long banging on the door trying to get in that when it suddenly opens, it's a very strange feeling.
I've typical singer's jowls, a bit fat and soggy. If I was really vain, I would have a nip and tuck, but the knife isn't an exciting prospect.
As a former Mod my love affair with fashion has never waned and whenever I go on tour I am always desperate to hit the shops as soon as possible.
When I was dressed as a clown in all that make-up I used to shed pounds every night and got agonising kidney stones because I was sweating so much.
Many performers try to sustain a high point in their careers by keeping themselves around those who are overanxious to tell them how good they are.
That's the nature of the business. You can have a hit and then nothing happens all of a sudden. But I don't resent it. Hits don't make great artists.
I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who don't like Robbie Williams but he is presented to the public in such a way that they have no choice.
In the past, it wasn't any big deal for people with talent to hang out together. Now we have the celebrity age, which has made a lot of things harder to do.
I have always believed that there is no age factor to this music business. You are only as old as you feel and basically you can be a contender at any time.
There are a million misconceptions about me but the greatest is probably that people think I'm the king of disco. I love disco but it is only one part of me.
I keep reminding myself I'm the same guy who was lucky enough to get my break because Roger Daltrey commissioned me to write the songs for one of his earlier albums.
The Seventies was a golden era. Back then we had some incredible talent with bands like the Undertones, the Rolling Stones and artists like Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney.
I really admire Ed Sheeran. He seems to have really beaten his way through and I think that's fantastic. He's his own man - good for him. But there aren't many of him out there.
I've found an extraordinary thing happens where I flash an entire finished song. I could be walking along, say over that bridge, and I see and hear the whole thing, words and music.
My first two albums, 'Silverbird and 'Just a Boy,' which had the single 'Long Tall Glasses' on it, were very well received. Then I did another one, 'Another Year,' which did miserably.
In my earlier albums like 'Another Year' and 'Just A Boy,' I always saw myself as a bit of a loser - the kind of guy who takes a drink and walks into a wall instead of through the door.
I'm impressed with Ed Sheeran. I think he has a terrific point of view and a great mentality but I sense there is someone in the background saying to him, 'We need more love songs, Ed.'
There were people who went for serious mind enhancement, like Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon, although I didn't really need to do that. I was blessed with an incredibly fertile imagination.
In the early Nineties, after my first round of financial problems, I started a studio in Kensal Road in London right at the time when no record company wanted to hear anything from Leo Sayer.
Before I got married, I had a girlfriend who ran off in the middle of our relationship with a millionaire. She called from the South of France and said, 'I found one, I'm sorry. That's it. Goodbye!'
You won't find me at parties or the openings of movies and I don't hang around with David Beckham and Kanye West. So the paparazzi leave me alone, which means that I can do my shows, write music and then live a normal life.
One of the reasons I had moved to London to pursue my career was that I could go to the clubs in the evening and maybe meet my heroes, people like Donovan and Bert Jansch and Dylan. I actually did see Dylan in a club one night.
After my second No. 1, my record company, Warner Brothers, gave me a beautiful present - quite unique at the time - one of the very first Sony stereos which had speaker and radio included so I could record the radio and build up cassette tapes of music, gospel singing, adverts, evangelists.