I'm against people downloading music.

People say I seem very negative about new music - well, if somebody asks me what I think of Keane, I'll tell 'em. I don't like 'em. I'll obviously take it a step too far and grossly insult the keyboard player's mam or summat, but I'm afraid that's just me.

Every song that I play I wrote by myself.

I don't like being on television when I'm playing live. I don't even like being on Jools Holland or any of them programs.

I'm a little bit of a control freak when it comes to my music, unfortunately.

Why is the rest of the world so overcrowded? Nobody lives in America! We're all squashed up on top of each other in London.

I've got my own style on the guitar, sure, and I play rhythm in a certain way, and I use certain inflections. People have said that to me, and I understand it.

I know there's bands that might write something that sounds like The Smiths, and they'll go, 'Oh, it sounds like The Smiths, we've got to make it sound not like The Smiths.'

There's not enough good things in the world.

I've grown to love California: It's the dream of every English musician to come here and work in the sunshine. To walk up Sunset Boulevard, knowing you're going to make music - that's it.

Frontmen come alive when they come onstage.

I'm not technically proficient enough to attempt all kinds of music.

I'm used to people being a mile away. That suits me. It's more nerve-wracking playing in front of people who are two feet away from me.

I absolutely loved being famous. It was all great, up until the point when it wasn't.

You have to make the effort with children. You can't have them thinking that I reckon I'm special, otherwise they'll start thinking they're special. I want them to feel normal for as long as possible because God knows they'll reach an age when they'll be told they're not.

I first came to London when I was 22 and working as a roadie. Having watched the 'News At Ten' all my life, I thought Big Ben was going to be massive, but I was underwhelmed.

As I get older, I don't aggressively pursue songs. All the great ones just appear.

Anything that's of any use, famous people get hold of it and take it for themselves and it gets a bad rap.

I don't think people need to know what colour socks I'm wearing today; I don't think people need to know what shower gel I'm using. There's too much information in the world, and there's no magic or mystery anymore.

I love the NFL. I don't have a team per se, but I'm into it.

You can't really write a full album about your missus. She'll start getting the wrong idea and start thinking I like her.

I like Chris Martin. I think he's a really great songwriter.

Rock stardom will die because nobody will make enough money any more to be rock stars.

My kids have got to work themselves around my life, not the other way. That's how kids become brats, if you're there staring at them all the time going, 'Are you alright?'

I can make going to the dry-cleaners last an entire day, and the dry cleaners might be 150 yards from my front door. You might find it hard to believe, but I am bone-idle lazy.

When I'm doing music and I'm on the road, I love it. But once I'm home, it's very difficult to go back out on the road.

Every album I've ever been involved in, on the day that it came out I believed in it.

It's fun to peek into other people's worlds and see how they go about doing things.

I would love to make a real jazz album someday because I never have. But that's something I'm not in a rush to do.

For me making music is part social, part interaction, part collaboration.

I should have a therapist. I have plenty to therapise about.

Everyone in my high school was a bit nerdy. We didn't even have a football team.

I don't want to be singing my diary.

Songs are about whatever you want them to be about. For me it might mean something completely different than what it means to you. So I'd say it's about whatever the listener thinks it's about.

I'm very American.

Nobody was listening when I learned how to play music. But there's something about being on stage, talking to the audience, looking at them and smiling, that's always been difficult for me. I'm a lot more comfortable now, but there are still moments of awkwardness.

What I was going for in the first two albums I didn't necessarily achieve. Because I was young and because it was my first time out. And the second album was such a 'quickie' sort of 'Let's just get it over with!' But the kind of music I make, there's a lot of subtlety in it. And I think it takes a couple of listens to actually really get it.

I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it.

The coolest thing I've gotten to do in the past few years is guest star on Sesame Street.

It's true, there's a lot of melancholy in my music. I don't know why, I'm not a melancholy person. I've always been drawn to it. Ever since I was a kid, if I had an album I would play the ballads on repeat.

Maybe I'm genetically more inclined to music - but the music I make is so far removed from Indian classical music. I grew up in Texas!

I wasn't a trained Mickey Mouse club performer. I played in jazz clubs and restaurants.

If you're a female and you get asked by someone who shoots the most beautiful female scenes to be in their film, it's kind of exciting.

Designers send me clothes I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing.

I don't want to be the next big anything. I just want to play for people and that's it.

A lot of my music is slow and subtle. The subtly is what I enjoy about making music.

Your limitations create your sound.

I genuinely don't feel that anything that's been written or said about me has overshadowed my music, and that's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned.

I like to be in control of things.

I had very modest expectations when I first moved to New York. I didn't even expect to get a record deal.