No matter what I do, I've always recognized that Deep Purple is primarily an instrumental band. That's where all the music comes from in rehearsals - it all stems from the music.

I have got a good imagination.

The thing to remember when you're re-recording pieces from the past is that you have to have respect for the original performances, recordings, and arrangements.

I write every day.

You can never criticize a monumental musician like Jon Lord or Richie Blackmore, or the part they played in the group, but life goes on.

The people who come to Purple shows are there for the music.

'Smoke On The Water' was ignored by everybody to begin with. We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from 'Machine Head.' But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.

I think you function much better when you trust people and when you've got a sort of relationship where you can develop ideas within a framework.

It means a lot to a lot of people, 'Smoke On The Water.'

I know the guys in Metallica. I'm very honored that they were influenced by Deep Purple when they started, and they've always been very kind to us.

I used to do interviews - I still do - interviews every day, all day. And you go from maybe doing a couple of professional interviews, where you can hear the sound right, to everyone else sounds like they're at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The reason 'Fireball' is my favorite album of that period is that without 'Fireball,' we would never have been able to make 'Machine Head.'

The band's a really close-knit family. We've got fantastically good friendships and relationships that have developed after all these years.

If there was such a thing as a typical English gentleman in rock music, then it was Jon Lord.

To the general public in America, the lifespan of Deep Purple probably finished with our 1984 album, 'Perfect Strangers.'

The one thing nobody was taught was how to deal with success, and I think that happens to everyone who makes it at a young age.

Things evolve. People mature.

I have been touring since I got my first band in 1962, so there is no problem there. We are basically performing musicians, so that's what we do.

An album represents an artist or a band or a group of musicians at any given moment in time. You just produce the music that you feel good about and hope that the audience shows some interest in it.

I'm very grateful for the other bands and artists that stood up for us with a view to our induction - that's nice of them. But I wish that the Hall Of Fame had had the discretion to ask us first. It's now become a debate in which we are too late to have the final word.

Can you imagine doing 'Nessa Dorma' with Luciano Pavarotti the maestro? It's unbelievable. He's a very generous man.

I have to think that 'Nessa Dorma' is the greatest rock ballad that's never been recorded as such.

I've consciously avoided actually reading anything about Wikipedia.

I realised that if I wanted to carry on with my musical dreams, I had to change, so I started meditating, and I changed my life entirely.

I don't think we were anti-commercial. But we were anti-contrivance, and like Zeppelin, we found dignity through the music we were playing.

Infinity is almost impossible for an eight-year-old to grasp. It's an inquiring age, and you're beginning to shape your thoughts and questions about life in general at that stage.

When I was in my formative years, I rejected Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, and Dean Martin. I now realise they were all great artists, but at the time, as a young man, you have to clear the decks.

When I was a kid, every street had a band, and we'd steal members from each other.

If you start adapting to audiences, you're really second-guessing the situation, and it becomes a bit more like cabaret.

The thing about a band is, it's not so much how good the musicians are - it's the blend of personalities and characters. It's the human chemistry that makes up a good team.

Life's not so rocky now. It was very volatile when you're young: you've got no experience. Your sense of disappointment is far greater; your sense of success is overwhelming. And then you've got the emotional conflict within any group that you're not mature enough to deal with until you get older. It levels out.

There's very little you can do these days about having any impact at a launch for a record unless you keep it very secret, because communications are so immediate, and YouTube and everything else kind of spoils the party.

When you're young, you're immortal, or so you think, and you never think there will be problems ahead.

I've tried to avoid the rock & roll highway and have taken the scenic route. I think all the guys have been more concerned with the music and the band's legacy than with the commercial aspects of life.

I feel very fortunate to have been able to do what I do for a living.

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.

I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around.

I'm brilliant at cooking my stepmother's scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached.

I am lucky, I don't have aches and pains. I do Pilates regularly, which is a series of stretching exercises, and I recommend it to anyone of my age because the temptation is not to exercise when you get older. Well, you should.

Before acting, I wanted to become a journalist. I also toyed with the idea of being a chef - but that's only when people asked me what I wanted to be. In fact, I always used to say I wanted to be an actor, but I didn't ever believe that I was good enough to be come one.

The whole atmosphere of the book, the tone of 'The Hobbit,' is of a kid's adventure story, told in the first person by Tolkien, who is introducing young people to the notion of Middle-earth. A lot of it is very light-hearted.

Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.

I have heard of people dying from prostate cancer, and they are the unlucky ones, the people who didn't know they had got it, and it went on the rampage.

In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.

I tend to discourage people from calling me 'Sir Ian,' because I don't like being separated out from the rest of the population. Of course, it can be useful if you're writing an official letter, like trying to get a visa or something passed through Parliament. They're impressed by these things.

People on television have trouble with fame because audiences think they're their mates.

When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.

I've often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, 'This is fiction.'

When we'd suggested doing it, the Theatre Royal management had said, 'Nobody wants to see Waiting for Godot.' As it happened, every single ticket was booked for every single performance, and this confirmation that our judgment was right was sweet. Audiences came to us from all over the world. It was amazing.

I'm the sort of person who doesn't write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out.