I think of myself as a poet. I grew up with poetic influences - what I know from my background is the bardic poetry, which came down through oral tradition.

I'm probably the most successful Celtic bard of my generation, who projected this style and this image and this casketful of magical songs all around the world.

The way I sing my songs leads the listener into a place of introspection, a state of mind that can trigger self-healing and the kind of profound rest you cannot get from sleep alone.

Meditation is certainly not a religion, cult, or spiritual path: it's actually a very basic practice to reduce stress.

My particular space has always been quite unique in popular music. I have a background in R&B and hard rock and straight pop, but I never went all the way with any of those genres.

I didn't know until later, but my uncle was quite a famous bohemian in Glasgow, and he played guitar. My father was a kind of a poetic bohemian, and he read me poetry.

I was making the music and writing the songs which reflected the emerging consciousness of my generation.

In the 1960s, I was convinced that the world was extremely mentally ill.

The planet is alive, and it's a woman.

What I needed and actually need is a discipline of tradition, which is lacking in our civilization. Discipline of tradition and the ceremony of humbleness.

If you have a loved one, you can survive anything.

Linda's in all the songs. 'Sunshine Superman,' 'Hampstead Incident,' 'Young Girl Blues'... Linda's the muse.

The songs I write and sing try to say important things with a lightness.

I wasn't trying to sound like anybody else. Basically, I was just experimenting all over the place.

With songwriters like me who are prolific, you just write the song and then put it on tape.

I've exhibited quite a few of my photographs. I expand them digitally till they're very big. It's an art school thing, I suppose.

I went on the Andy Williams show, the Smothers Brothers show, and maybe I shouldn't have. But regrets - I don't think I have any.

I didn't realise that I was so accomplished on the guitar until someone said to me, 'How do you do that?' That someone was John Lennon. He asked me to teach him my technique.

There's only one thing, in the end, and that's singing truth in a pleasant way.

I have amassed an enormous amount of songs about every particular condition of humankind - children's songs, marriage songs, death songs, love songs, epic songs, mystical songs, songs of leaving, songs of meeting, songs of wonder. I pretty much have got a song for every occasion.

Bohemia isn't somewhere an artist runs to escape society. It's a place where like-minded artists gather to plot the downfall of dogma and ignorance.

All of us '60s pop stars came from old cities which had a jazz club, a folk club, a coffee house, and an art school.

The songs I write are about searching, and they're ambiguous - always to be understood in different ways.

'Superman' had nothing to do with the superhero or physical power. It's a reference to the book 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra,' by Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote about the evolution of consciousness to reach a higher superman state.

My father brought me up to be a socialist.

Yogis have human emotions, but the thing is not to let anger and doubt become an obsession.

Poets have a sense of place. My place was London, and I sang about it.

On the outskirts of the desert in Yemen, there was a cafe with a jukebox that had 'Sunshine Superman' on it. I loved that.

I went to America not for fame or fortune but to be able to communicate with the biggest audience.

The human race is ill because we have no contact with the lowest level of consciousness.

I can't save the world, but if I can share some ideas, people might be able to save themselves.

I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.

Linda loves an argument, and I like to engage, too, but she knows that I'm a poet, so I will engage forever. We are in the Chinese astrology of dogs, and we are forever snapping at each other.

The Faces are my old chums. We used to hang out.

The similarity between my music and The Beatles' music is it has within it a very positive quality. It's woven with humor.

I get plastic nails done in the salon. When I was younger, they were stronger, but now I get my nails built up. Then I can dance over the strings. I say, 'Okay, I need four nails; I'm a guitarist.' Sometimes if I'm in a strange place, the girl says, 'Yeah, all the guys say that.'

It seems to be very clear that each new generation that comes - not only audiences but young bands as well - are very encouraged and enthused and inspired by my work.

I think my legacy is important because my songs - perhaps more than those of any other songwriter I know - cover every movement from 1965 on, socially and artistically. If you want songs about ecology, I've got ecology songs; if you want songs about spirituality, I've got spiritual songs.

The audiences used to say, 'Are you a Donovan fan or a Dylan fan?' It was all very naive, really.

I feel strongly that having a disability in one area makes you explore others instead.

My father was a part of that generation, and my mother, too - the late-'30s, early-'40s big-band generation. Frank Sinatra, Art Blakey, Gene Krupa, Billie Holiday - all that stuff was in my background.

I'm in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jimmy Page gave me the MOJO Maverick award. I got an Ivor Novella Award for my very first song.

Society may shun bohemia, may put it down, may consider it useless and ineffective, but it is where everything cooks and boils and is created.

A young person coming up and saying, 'I absolutely love your music,' is very encouraging.

I regard myself as an international man, a citizen of the earth.

I became a recluse many times and enjoyed a private life I didn't have during the '60s.

Actually, I'm the Scottish Woody Guthrie.

I meditate every day and do some hatha yoga every day.

I never considered myself an entertainer. I always felt I had to be connected to something meaningful, or it wasn't worth doing.

The Beatles and I became fast friends.