I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.

Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry.

I crack myself up. Even I don't know what I'm going to say next.

I was too old to be a punk rocker. I was a mod, that's really the only youth tribe I ever belonged to - and even then, not for very long.

Where I grew up, the one unmistakable sign of homosexuality was to betray some interest in your appearance.

My declining allure is a source of great sadness to me.

I'd like to be rich, but without all the downside of fame.

My dad was an electrical engineer.

The first time I heard rock'n'roll on a big sound system would have been at a fairground at the seaside. That's a hell of a sensory experience right there.

Me, I listen to all kinds of music, really.

There've been lots of positive changes in the city since I worked at Salford Tech in the seventies, and I'm pleased to be known as Salford's Bard and to have helped put it on the map.

Poets are supposed to be underappreciated, don't you know? There is always a strange reaction to those who become successful in their own lifetime, and so I always felt lucky that I made the living I did out of it.

They're very different things, a poem and a song, you wouldn't think they would be, but they are.

A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour.

Literally' - I'm not having it; people can't go around saying 'literally.' Otherwise, what's literal? There's not another word for literally: if it isn't figurative or metaphorical, what is it? It's literal: there's no substitute.

If I'd have known how much fun fatherhood would be, I would have started way earlier than 45.

I'm not giving away sartorial secrets but the trousers I wear cost 19 quid.

I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.

I love the Arctic Monkeys!

Somebody up there likes me. It ain't like I've followed a well trodden trajectory.

I'm dead fussy about food: I don't eat junk.

I've got a speech impediment.

The very pointlessness of a sea walk is it's attractiveness to me.

It was a tedious saying among hippies: if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. I was very much part of the problem.

I'm a great believer in the capsule wardrobe - a wardrobe where's there's a limited palate of black colours.

I never saw a painting that would not be improved by the addition of tropical fish.

I love talking about anything, except for myself.

I don't go looking for new fads.

I had TB as a boy. They said my skeletal frame never developed properly.

When I sit down to eat, the greatest spice of all is hunger.

Maybe there are luckier people than me, but I don't know who that would be. I feel pretty lucky. I've had a nice life - I don't know how I could be luckier.

No one wants to be a source of anxiety to everybody they know.

At the beginning, there was no chance I'd get published so I thought I'd give it a go live. I had to perform in rock band places and working men's clubs, where you wouldn't expect to find poetry. I ploughed a lonely furrow.

It took me 30 years for people to consider me an overnight success.

I've had a few jobs, but if you want to be a writer, you're better off getting a job that doesn't require that you do anything.

Idleness - a job that you have to go to, but not necessarily do anything - is the poet's friend.

By the '80s, anything to do with punk was perceived as rancid. Me being known as the 'punk poet' meant my work and I plummeted.

When you write poetry you are always addressing the world somehow.

It amazes me there are movies about writers… such inert, uneventful lives.

The main thing a poem ought to be is musical. It should be rhythmic. You should hear it as a musical piece in your head as you're writing it.

I judge by appearances. People tell me I shouldn't.

I've never met a happy atheist.

My trouser needs are simple: a narrow leg in a dark colour, with jean detailing.

My favourite writers are columnists.

From social pariah to King of the World? It's taken 45 years, so I've been able to adjust to it!

I eat like a pig. Tripe is the only thing I won't eat.

The '80s were a lost decade.

Fame just ain't a natural situation. But I shouldn't have worried because everyone thought I was a bit famous even before I'd done anything; people just assumed I was famous.

I went to what can only be described as a slum school in Salford - rough and full of trainee punks - but I was very lucky in that I had one inspiring teacher, John Malone, who gave the whole class an interest in romantic poetry.

People who believe in God are happier than those who don't.