The struggle isn't just about being straight or gay or transgender - it's a human struggle. That's always really been my kind of starting point: If you're out there and you're odd, come over to my house.

In a way, we're going backwards. In the early '80s, it was like all these huge strides, and everything was more free and easy. I think we're going back. I don't know if it's the economics or what, but things are getting more right-wing, definitely.

I always think that change is like a daisy chain.

I wanted people not to care about whether you were gay, straight, black, white, transgender, whatever it may be... That being said, there's more work to be done... I still want to change the world, absolutely.

I think there's something really powerful about being yourself.

I look at myself at 19 and think I would never do what I did then now! I was so brazen, so confident, so fearless in a way. And remember, the world was a very aggressive place then.

I'm not in love, but I'm open to persuasion.

It's funny that I'm so popular with seven-, eight-, nine-year-olds.

I try to find happiness in almost anything... watching videos about new exercises, like ones you can do on a flight when you clench your buttocks.

For some strange reason, my gay life didn't get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.

Adele is selling millions of records, and everybody tries to sing like Adele.

For artists of my caliber, we're not played on the radio, so we don't really get a chance to get involved in that debate at all. We don't get a chance, because this weird kind of ageism exists in pop music. If you're past a certain age, you're not relevant. That's the kind of cliched term.

Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.

I don't listen to the radio, so I don't really know what's going on in current pop culture. I know about the obvious things, like Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran and Adele, because I hear them. They're everywhere.

I can be quite noisy and robust in the morning.

For someone like me, who has grown up with Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, it's hard not to invest a lot of myself in what I do.

When you're successful, people have no sympathy. Nobody wants to catch the tears of a millionaire.

I've sold a lot of records. I've sold, like, 150 million records, and I don't think I've had that many good reviews. It's one of those things that when you're really successful, critics hate you just because you're successful.

Compliments are very un-British, but when someone pays you one, you should take it.

I'd rather they call me a national treasure than a national waste of time. And yes, it does feel good, but I've had to earn it.

I've got so much to be happy about.

Sometimes, having a reputation can be the best thing because people expect you to be really difficult, perhaps a bit caustic, and hard work - and I'm none of those things.

There are lots of things about me that have changed. Some things are a process; some things take time.

My appetite for self-destruction and misery is greatly diminished. I'm not interested in being unhappy.

I think that's the fascinating thing about the '70s is that it turns out it was quite a dark decade. But, like, who knew?

To me, I think of the '70s as being this glorious decade where I discovered who I was and discovered all these amazing things... punk rock, electro music, fashion, all of that.

On the street, on the train - I pull my hat down, and nobody knows it's me. I always wanted the kind of fame that came with an off button.

I was always good at music.

I was never a wallflower - I put my head on the style chopping block.

At 16, I walked around knowing I'd get chased and attacked for dressing a certain way - I felt I had an undeniable right to be who I wanted to be. My father said to hit them back, but I was never much good at that. So I developed a big mouth instead of a quick right hook.

When I got sober, I really felt like there was something that was missing from my life, Buddhism is something that I practice.

I forgive very easily, and I suppose, in the same way, I expect to be forgiven very easily as well. I grew up with that.

My dad was very explosive, God rest his soul. He could fly off the handle like no one I've ever known, and I have definitely got that in my personality: that ability to sort of smash the house up and then say, 'Put the kettle on,' to have that kind of attitude of, 'Well, I'm OK now, so everybody else has got to be OK.'

I love American positivity.

You're in a band with someone, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to agree with everything they think or do.

I used to tell my mum to leave my dad when I was, like, nine. I loved my father, don't get me wrong. I really loved him, but he wasn't a good dad, and he wasn't a good husband.

My dad was quite an extreme man.

I knew that I was different when I was six years old, but it wasn't until I got to about 10 or 11 that I realised I was a gay man.

There's no better feeling than having an idea and seeing it become reality, emerging in the physical world.

There will always be people saying things can't be done. And history shows that time and time again things 'couldn't be done' and they were done.

When I was 16 years old, I went scuba diving in Greece and saw more plastic bags than fish. I wondered why we couldn't just clean it up. That rather simple question stuck in my head.

I've always been obsessed with technology.

I'm a firm believer of the venture capitalist-style approach to solving problems. Rather than doing many small things that you hope add up, it's much more effective to work on projects that are high risk and high reward.

We absolutely need to clean up the plastic that's already in the ocean. It won't go away by itself. But we do also need to make sure that no more plastic enters the oceans in the first place. These things should go hand in hand.

What humans aren't good at is trying to consume less, to consume less plastic, to not be lazy.

I am quite obsessive by nature.

Whenever you start working on something, you have to go about it with the underlying assumption that this puzzle has a solution, right? If you started a jigsaw puzzle not knowing whether all the pieces were in the box, it would not be a fun exercise.

Look at climate change. That's a bigger problem than plastic, but we can't all focus on that and forget about plastic - that isn't how the world works. We can divide our attention across different things, using clean-up to strengthen prevention.

I tell my team you have to aim for success, but assume failure.

I am not a man of the sea.