I liked him, that Jarvis Cocker. I like the fact he was androgynous, he could appeal to everybody. He wasn't just a lad pretending to be a thug.

My biggest fault is that I give people too much credit. Then they let you down. I'm 99.9 per cent perfect - that's how I look at myself and, therefore, everybody else too.

Hell is being stuck in a lift with Elton John and the Queen Mother.

Putting another human being above yourself isn't healthy. I think it's capitalistic.

I gave it up three weeks before my black belt, foolishly. I got to my third brown belt and must have trained for 18 months but never went for it. I was nearly 18 and got this thing in my head about, ' Who are they to grade me?' Trying to be a rebel when I should have done it. It's my only regret, not going for a black belt.

I'd like to change the world. Eradicate poverty, racism, and sexism... all the usual things.

Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.

People in Russia learned English off the Beatles. People in Japan learned English off the Stone Roses. Noel Gallagher says music can't change the world, but the Roses made him want to start a group, so it changed his world.

I see The Stone Roses in '89 as Technicolor: we were all about joy and possibilities of life.

I started managing myself in October 2004, and since then, it's gone up and up.

When you live in Manchester and it's raining every day, you've got to imagine the sun sometimes. When you're brought up in concrete, you aim for the green leaves. And when you get to the green leaves, you yearn again for concrete.

I started doing karate when I was 11.

'Psychedelic' means mind-expanding.

Belief outweighs talent. Self-belief's got me everything, self-belief.

I don't like to play anywhere with a banner for Carlsberg or vodka or whatever. I'm not a drinker myself, and I don't like feeling like I'm working for the liquor companies.

I was jailed for using words that I still dispute. Anyone who's ever met me will tell you that I'm not a violent person.

I wrote a lot of lyrics in prison, but they'd all be like, 'Crawls upon the shoulders, hatred in the eyes.' I wrote about 50 songs in there that were all about jail. I've come out and thought, 'I've only served eight weeks; I can't really write a concept album about jail.'

I love harmonicas - old blues players like Sonny Boy Williamson.

We feel we're the only British group worth exporting since the Sex Pistols, definitely.

Everybody is a star. It's true. And if you've got a light, don't let it go out. 'Cos some people sink under.

I'd like to write songs for other people, see things from a different perspective. I'd like to watch things from the dugout instead of the pitch.

You'll never find a Manchester band slagging off another Manchester band, but within each Manchester band, people will rip each other apart: Mondays, Smiths, New Order, Roses, Oasis.

Even me mum can't tell me what to do.

I'm lucky enough to be one of them music makers who can do a dance festie or a rock festie.

One person might perceive me as godlike, and the next might think I'm a northern thug. I don't think I've done myself any favours... but I swear I've not had a proper fight since I was 14.

I like the fact that a group can become successful, and by way of what you are, you can show up all the other people who are around you.

When I was 9, I was into T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Alice Cooper. I knew The Beatles because my nan introduced me to them, but T. Rex was the first band I got into myself. I got 'Metal Guru' a few months after hearing 'Children of the Revolution' in Pwllheli in North Wales at a market.

Oasis are okay, but they're like The Sun: base.

Some of the kids who discovered me from my 'F.E.A.R.' record or one of the U.N.K.L.E. tunes have said, 'I don't even like the Roses; I love your solo stuff.' I buzz off that.

It is a fact that everyone's got a limited run in music - but who's to say how long that run lasts? I used to think that there would be no way I'd still be in music when I was 40. I used to think anyone who was 40 was an old man, and they probably shouldn't be doing it anymore.

If you want to call me a Karaoke King, I'll take it.

I actually was able to give up shopping in February '99.

I give thanks for everything that's ever happened to me and for everything I've got.

Northern soul was huge in Manchester in the '70s and '80s; I went to a lot of all-nighters.

I love people, me, I believe in people. I love people too much.

I've not thought about the Stone Roses since we quit. How many LPs do I have to make to stop people talking about it?

Just because I'm a successful singer who's loved and has been loved for years doesn't mean I'm sitting behind electric gates in my own fantasy land.

I'm solo, and I love being solo. I believe I went through the Roses so I could become a solo music-maker. That's what I believe.

The Beatles were great; we know that. But we were trying to do a new thing. Why do we need to recreate the Sixties?

When the ravens leave the Tower, England shall fall, they say. We want to be there shooting the ravens.

I feel like I've established myself as a music maker in my own right.

When The Stone Roses first came out, the early reviews called me 'simian.' I had to look that up at the time.

I can't think of anyone who's reformed for art's sake. That's why the Roses will never reform.

We wrote 'Stellify' for Rihanna, but as we got to the end of writing it, I thought, 'You know what? I'm gonna keep this for myself. We'll give her another one.' She'd have probably sung it better, but it is too good for me not to do it.

With the Stone Roses, I always thought we'd be successful because we had some great songs.

We need to ban all air-freighted food. Carrots from Holland. Potatoes from Egypt. It's got to stop.

I spent the summer of '88 indoors, writing 'Shoot You Down,' 'Bye Bye Badman,' and 'Don't Stop.'

I've never chatted up a girl in me life. I've always let girls come to me. I've never approached a girl to chat her up.

People tend to settle for the fiver rather than going for the pot of gold.

I feel like the Ryan Giggs of music.